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By Lewis Mayers 

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By Lewis Meriam 

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J 



STUDIES IN ADMINISTRATION 



THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

A Study of the System of Personnel Administration 
of the United States Government 



BY 
LEWIS MAYERS, Ph.D., LL.B. 

MEMBER OF STAFF, INSTITUTE FOR 
GOVERNMENT RESEARCH 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK LONDON 

1922 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 

THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH 



y 



Printed in the United States of America 



FEB 24 1922^ 
'0)G!,A653896 ^ 



THE INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT RESEARCH 
Washington, D. C. 



The Institute for Government Research is an association of citizens 
for cooperating with public officials in the scientific study of govern- 
ment with a view to promoting efficiency and economy in its operations 
and advancing the science of administration. It aims to bring into 
existence such information and materials as will aid in the formation 
of public opinion and will assist officials, particularly those of the 
national government, in their efforts to put the public administration 
upon a more efficient basis. 

To this end, it seeks by the thoroughgoing study and examination 
of the best administrative practice, public and private, American and 
foreign, to formulate those principles which lie at the basis of all 
sound administration, and to determine their proper adaptation to the 
specific needs of our public administration. 

The accomplishment of specific reforms the Institute recognizes to 
be the task of those who are charged with the responsibility of legis- 
lation and administration ; but it seeks to assist, by scientific study and 
research, in laying a solid foundation of information and experience 
upon which such reforms may be successfully built. 

While some of the Institute's studies find application only in the 
form of practical cooperation with the administrative officers directly 
concerned, many are of interest to other administrators and of general 
educational value. The results of such studies the Institute purposes 
to publish in such form as will insure for them the widest possible 
utilization. 



Robert S. Brookings, 

Chairman 



Edwin A. Alderman 
Robert S. Brookings 
James F. Curtis 
R. Fulton Cutting 
Frederic A. Delano 
George Eastman 
Raymond B. Fosdick 
Felix Frankfurter 



Officers 
Frank J. Goodnow, 

Vice-Chairman 

James F. Curtis, 

Secretary 

Trustees 
Edwin F. Gay 
Frank J. Goodnow 
Jerome D. Greene 
Arthur T. Hadley 
Herbert C. Hoover 
A. Lawrence Lowell 
Samuel Mather 
R. B. Mellon 

Director 
W. F. Willoughby 



Frederick Strauss, 

Treasurer 



Charles D. Norton 
Martin A. Ryerson 
Frederick Strauss 
Silas H. Strawn 
William H. Taft 
Ray Lyman Wilbur 
Robert S. Woodward 



PREFACE 

Among the fundamental factors determining efficiency of 
public administration that of the system employed in securing, 
compensating, directing and controlling the personnel required 
for the conduct of governmental operations will always occupy 
first rank, Xo amount of care in determining how a govern- 
ment shall be organized for the performance of its work, the 
manner in which the funds necessary for its support shall be 
raised and expended, and the particular practices and pro- 
cedure that shall be employed in carrying on its activities, will 
give even a measurable approach to efficiency in the actual 
administration of public affiairs unless a technically competent 
and loyal personnel can be secured and retained in the service 
and a system devised whereby this personnel may be effiectively 
directed and controlled. 

In view of the importance of the subject it is little short 
of remarkable the slight attention that this problem has received 
as a problem. There is in existence a large body of literature 
dealing with what is known as civil serA-ice reform. This 
literature, however, scarcely touches more than one or two 
phases of the problem of personnel administration as a whole. 
Primarily it is concerned with the two related questions of 
entrance into the government service and the legal status, from 
the standpoint of tenure of office, of employees after entrance. 
Even in respect of these matters the interest of promoters of 
reform has been primarily in securing what may be termed 
political, as distinguished from administrative, reform. They 
have sought to purify our political life by the abolition of the 
spoils system and the prevention of undue partisan activities 
on the part of public employees. Only in comparativelv re- 
cent years have persons either inside or outside of the govern- 



Vlll 



PREFACE 



ment begun to concern themselves with other phases of per- 
sonnel administration. 

As soon as studies of this latter character began to be 
attempted it was at once seen that the personnel problem was 
an exceedingly complicated and difficult one. It involved such 
elements as the determination of the positions to be filled and 
the qualifications required of their incumbents; the classifica- 
tion of these positions to the end that appropriate rates of 
compensation might be fixed and the line of advancement 
clearly indicated; the fixing of the tenure of office; the deter- 
mination of the method of recruitment of new employees 
and the machinery and methods to be employed in securing 
such employees; the adoption of systems for testing effi- 
ciency and of rules to govern promotions, transfers, demo- 
tions and separations from the service; and the provision of 
a retirement system that will take care of the financial needs 
of those employees who are dropped from the rolls on account 
of incapacity resulting from old age or disabilities acquired 
while in the service. 

All of these represent factors that must be studied, and 
studied with great care, if a proper personnel system is to be 
secured. The present volume attempts such a study of this 
problem as it confronts the national government. No such 
work has ever been attempted before. It is at once descrip- 
tive, critical and constructive. It seeks to make known in 
detail existing conditions regarding each phase of the federal 
personnel system, to point out wherein these conditions are 
satisfactory or the reverse and the lines along which changes 
should be made to bring about better conditions. The only 
personnel topic not handled is that of the provision made 
for the retirement of civil employees. Important as this sub- 
ject is, consideration of it was omitted partly on account of 
its special character and partly due to limitations of space. 
The Institute moreover has already prepared a volume dealing 
with the principles governing the retirement of public em- 
ployees, and it hopes before long to publish one dealing spe- 



PREFACE ix 

cially with the civil service retirement system of the national 
government. 

The publication of this work is especially timely due to 
the fact that the national government now has under way an 
ambitious plan to reorganize thoroughly its present personnel 
system on the basis of the recommendations of its Congres- 
sional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries that 
reported on March 12, 1920. Throughout this work these 
recommendations are passed in review and their merits com- 
mented upon. 

The author of the present volume, Mr. Lewis Mayers, is 
exceptionally qualified for his task. He took his doctor's 
degree in political science at Columbia University in 19 14. 
For three years he was with the Civil Service Commission 
of New York City, first as examiner, and later as chief of 
the Bureau of Service and Efficiency Records, positions which 
brought him into immediate contact with the practical prob- 
lems of personnel administration. While serving on the staff 
of the Institute for Government Research his work was almost 
wholly in this field of public administration. Owing to the 
fact that Mr. Mayers left the Institute before his volume was 
put through the press, certain changes have been made in the 
manuscript as submitted by him for which he is not responsible. 
This is especially true of Chapter VII. 

W. F. WiLLOUGHBY. 



"'I 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Introductory i 

Size of the Executive Civil Service 2 

Geographical Distribution of Executive Civil Service .... 4 

Character of Employments in the Executive Civil Service ... 6 

Women in the Executive Civil Service 17 

PART I. THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICS FROM THE 
EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE 

II. Introductory 19 

Dual Character of the Federal Personnel Problem 19 

Elimination of the Political Factor in Selection the First Essential 

to an Efficient Personnel System 20 

Means of Elimination of the Political Factor 24 

III. The Law and Tradition of Selection and Tenure ... 26 

The Civil Service Reform Movement 26 

Types of Systems of Formal Selection 26 

The System of Pass Examinations 27 

The System of 'Competitive Examinations : Selected Applicants 28 

The System of Competitive Examinations : Open to All .... 28 

The Appointing Power 29 

Presidential Positions 32 

Power of Congress to Control the Discretion of the President in 

Respect to Appointments 38 

Non-Presidential Positions 40 

Early Legislation Regarding Methods of Selection 41 

The Law of 1871 43 

The Civil Service Ac^ of 1883 44 

The Civil Service Rules and Orders 54 

The "Classified" Service S6 

Non-Competitive Positions 57 

Positions Excepted by the Rules and Orders 60 

Positions Excepted by Statute 64 

Exception of Designated Individuals 68 

Laborers 73 

Strict Construction of Exceptions from Formal Methods of 

Selection 74 

Statistics of Employees According to Method of Selection Status 80 

Tradition in Selection 81 

Term of Office 84 

Protection against Removal for Political Reasons . . , . . 89 



xii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER ^ 

IV. The Extension of Formal Systems of Selection .... 90 
Heads of Departments and Independent Establishments ... 96 

Assistant Secretaries and Analogous Officers 98 

Heads of Bureaus and Services 99 

Other Superior Personnel at Washington no 

Solicitors of the Departments iio 

Auditors of the Departments m 

Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission m 

Smithsonian Institution and National Home for Disabled 

Volunteer Soldiers ^^3 

Subordinate Personnel at Washington Ii3 

Legal Employees • .114 

Employees of Certain Boards and Commissions 116 

Private Secretaries and Confidential Clerks ii7 

Field Service: Chief Officers 120 

General Conditions 121 

The Four- Year Term : Its History and Disadvantages ... 123 

Action Required to Put Field Services on Merit Basis . . . 124 

Movement for Placing Postal Service on Merit Basis ... 126 

Chief National Bank Examiners 132 

Field Service: Subordinate Personnel I33 

Deputy Collectors of Internal Revenue and Deputy Marshals . 133 

Field Employees : Federal Farm Loan Board I37 

Postal Employees : Star Routes and Third and Fourth Class 

Post Offices 137 

Laborers 138 

Foreign Service 139 

Conclusion 142 

V. The Elimination of Political Interference Inside the Service 144 

The Congressman and Political Interference 14S 

Direct Prohibition of Outside Intervention in Personnel Matters 148 

Location of Legal Power in Personnel Matters 151 

Politics and Salary Increases 153 

Political Pressure upon Employees by Superior Officers . . . 154 

Prohibition of Forced Campaign Contributions I5S 

Prohibition of Forced Political Services 158 

Prohibition of Coercion by Persons Outside the Service . . . 159 

Restrictions on Voluntary Political Activity 160 



PART II. THE PROBLEM OF FEDERAL PERSONNEL 
ADMINISTRATION 

VI. Introduction 168 

Special Factors in the Federal Personnel Problem 168 

Th^ Aim and Scope of Personnel Administration 173 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Procedure in Developing a Proper Personnel System .... 174 

The Problem of Personnel Control 176 

The Need for Special Organization for Personnel Administration 177 

VII. The Classification and Standardization of Positions and 

Salaries 180 

Legislative Determination of Positions and Salaries : The Stat- 
utory Roll 181 

Administrative Determination of Positions and Salaries : The Sum 

Appropriations 185 

Lack of Inter-Departmental Uniformity in Titles and Compensa- 
tion Rates 193 

The Work of the Reclassification Commission 195 

Working Organization of the Commission 196 

Method of Determining Position Specifications 197 

Scope and Character of Specifications 200 

Primary Unit of Classification: The Class 200 

Arrangement of Classes in Series and Services 202 

Method of Determining Compensation Rates 203 

Provision of Minimum and Maximum Rates 205 

Legal Determination of Specifications and Rates 205 

Installation of Classification 206 

Current Administration and the Classification 207 

Classification and Appropriation Technique 208 

General Summary of Classification 213 

VIII. Selection by Promotion from Within versus Recruitment 

FROM Without 215 

Case for Selection by Promotion from Within the Service . . 216 

Existing Conditions : Positions in the Natural Line of Promotion 222 

Public Health Service 223 

Diplomatic Service 225 

Consular Service 226 

Coast and Geodetic Survey 227 

Examining Force: Patent Office 228 

Postal Service 228 

War and Navy Departments 233 

Civilian Engineers : War Department 234 

Attitude of Civil Service Commission 236 

Attitude of Reclassification Commission . 239 

Central Control of Selection by Promotion from Within . . . 240 
Existing Conditions : Positions not in the Natural Line of Pro- 
motion 246 

Sub-clerical Position 249 

Clerical Position 250 

Stenographic Positions 250 

Statistical, Accounting and Legal Positions 251 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Other Technical Positions .252 

Selection from Within as Affected by Educational Standards at 

Entrance 252 

The British Personnel System 254 

Applicability of British System to American Conditions ... 255 

Provision of Educational Facilities 258 

The Area of Selection from Within • 264 

Attitude of Civil Service Commission 271 

Attitude of Congress 274 

Disadvantages of Existing Restrictions upon Transfers . . . 275 

Attitude of Reclassification Commission 284 

Absence of Means for Locating Eligibles for Transfer . . . 286 
Advantages of Recruiting Personnel at Washington from the 

Field Services 287 

Technical Obstacles to Selection from Within 292 

IX. Methods of Selection from Within : Reassignment and Pro- 

motion 298 

Promotion and Reassignment Distinguished from Increase of 

Compensation 298 

Reassignment versus Promotion 299 

Reassignment Involving No Change of Compensation or Grade . 300 

Reassignment Involving Increase of Compensation 303 

The Case for Formal Promotion Methods 303 

Existing Promotion Methods Z*^ 

Central Restrictions 307 

Departmental Restrictions 310 

Political and Other Improper Influences in Selection for Promotion 312 

The Technical Problem of Formal Promotion Methods .... 317 

Types of Formal Methods of Promotion 318 

Seniority 318 

Efficiency Record 321 

Competitive Examination . 332 

Combination of Efficiency Records, Competitive Examinations 

and Seniority 337 

General Summary of Formal Promotion Methods 338 

X. Recruit Methods : Some Basic Aspects 345 

Emphasis upon Education 345 

Requirement of Specialized Knowledge and Experience .... 347 

Training for Entrance 351 

Maximum Age Limits 353 

Recruitment of Women 355 

Basic Questions of Practical Procedure 357 

Fully-Assembled, Local-Assembled and Non-Assembled Examina- 
tions 358 

Oral, Written and Manual Tests 361 



CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Experience Tests 364 

Education Tests 367 

Technical Capacity Tests 369 

Psychological Tests 372 

Personality Tests 376 

XI. Recruitment Methods: The Classified Competitive Service 378 

Legal Basis 379 

Area of Competition 380 

Examining and Recruiting Organization 385 

Places of Holding Examinations 386 

Ordering of Examinations 387 

Advertising and Inviting Applications 389 

Safeguarding the Integrity of Examinations 392 

Examination of Fourth Class Postmasters and Rural Carriers , . 398 

Speed of Production of Eligible Registers 404 

Appeals for Re-rating 406 

Military Preference 406 

Certification for Apportioned Positions 413 

Restriction of Certification of Members of Same Family . . . 428 

The "Three Name" Certification Rule 429 

Discretion in Fixing Entrance Compensation Rates 440 

Publicity of Eligible Registers 441 

Probationary Period /]/]/{ 

Efficiency of the Competitive Examination System' 446 

XII. Recruitment Methods : The Unclassified Service .... 454 

Presidential Postmasters . 454 

Laborers 465 

Consular Service 471 

Diplomatic Service 476 

Public Health Service Medical Officers 478 

XIII. The Maintenance of Individual Efficiency 480 

Records as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency . . . 481 

Piece Work as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency . . 482 
Periodic Salary Increases as a Means of Promoting Individual 

Efficiency 482 

Recommendation of the Reclassification Commission Regarding 

Salary Increases 490 

Liability to Demotion and Dismissal as a Means of Promoting 

Individual Efficiency 492 

Existing Law and Regulations Regarding Dismissals .... 495 
Possible Machinery for Controlling Exercise of Power of Dis- 
missal 501 

Power to Suspend as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency 507 

Other Factors for Promoting Individual Efficiency 508 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 
CHAPTER 

General Attractiveness of the Public Service 5o» 

Security Sio 

The Merit System SIO 

Opportunity for Advancement SH 

XIV. Working Conditions 5i8 

Hours of Labor Si8 

Overtime Work • • • SIQ 

Leave Privileges • 52i 

Physical Environment, Medical Services, etc S^S 

XV. Organization for Personnel Administration 529 

Analysis of the Problem 529 

Organization for Recruitment 530 

The Problem of the Examining Personnel 53i 

Organization for Internal Administration 536 

Organization for Classification of Positions and Salaries ... 536 

Organization for Determination of Physical Work Conditions . . 537 

Organization for Elimination of Political Considerations ... 537 

Dual Character of the Problem of Central Administration . . 538 

Departmental Organization 543 

XVI. Employees Organizations and Committees 544 

Employees Organizations 544 

Existing Employees Organizations 545 

Legislative Activities of Employees Organizations 546 

Right of Employees Organization to Affiliate with Outside Or- 
ganizations 556 

Right of Employees Organizations to Strike 558 

General Conclusions Regarding Place of Employees Organizations 

in a Government Personnel System 559 

Employees Committees 561 

Existing Machinery for Employees Representation 562 

Attitude of Reclassification Commission in Respect to Employees 

Representation 564 

Machinery for Conference in the British Service 566 

Composition of Employees Committees 569 

The Function of Employees Committees 570 

Employees Organizations as Representatives of Employees before 

Management 571 

Appendix 575 

Index S9S 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTORY 

The present volume concerns itself almost exclusively with 
the personnel of the civil service of the executive branch of 
the government. The employees of Congress ^ and of the 
judicial branch ^ of the government are not at any point con- 
sidered in the body of the discussion, ,but they receive inci- 
dental mention. Similarly, the personnel of the municipal 
government of the District of Columbia is excluded from con- 
sideration as not being properly a part of the federal service. 

Although the executive civil service is clearly distinguished, 
for the most part, from the military and naval services, two 
branches of the former may be regarded as quasi-military and 
naval. The organization of the medical officers of the Public 
Health Service is in many points similar to that of the military 
and naval services and in time of war these officers may be 
detailed, at the direction of the President, to the army or the 
navy. When so detailed they do not lose their civilian status 
unless they choose to accept temporary commissions in the 
military or naval forces. Their commissions in the Public 

^ The Library of Congress is not discussed, because it is under the con- 
trol of the legislative branch, although the Librarian and the Superin- 
tendent of the building are appointed by the President by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate. 

' It is understood, of course, that aside from the judges and commis- 
sioners only the clerical employees of the courts are regarded as falling 
in the judicial branch. The marshals and their deputies, and the 
custodial ernployees attached to the buildings where the courts sit, are 
employees in the executive service, being under the direction of the 
Department of Justice and of the Treasury Department, respectively. 

I 



2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Health Service, moreover, do not obligate them to serve for 
any given term of years. The Public Health Service con- 
sequently has been regarded in this volume as essentially a 
civilian service. 

The Coast Guard, on the other hand, although not strictly 
a part of the naval service, has been, especially recently, so 
largely assimilated in that service with respect to the per- 
sonnel that it has been treated as outside the range of the 
present discussion. Not only may the service as a whole in 
time of war be made an integral part of the naval service (as 
it was during the late war) but even when on a peace footing 
enlistment in the Coast Guard service is for a definite term 
of years. 

As used in the following pages, then, the term executive 
civil service embraces all officers and employees of the federal 
government except those of the legislative and judicial 
branches, the army, the navy, the Coast Guard, and the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

A term frequently encountered in dealing with federal 
governmental matters is "departmental service." This refers 
to all the personnel attached to the central offices of the several 
departments, bureaus, and services at Washington, and is used 
in contradistinction to "field service," which embraces all 
personnel of all services outside of Washington,^ with the ex- 
ception of those in the consular and diplomatic services, which 
are collectively designated as the "foreign service." 
Size of the Executive Civil Service. — The most recent 
reliable figures available regarding the extent and distribution 
of the federal executive civil service are those published by 
the Bureau of the Census in the Official Register of the United 
States for 19 19. These figures show the number and distribu- 
tion of the executive civil service on July ist, 191 9, to have 
been approximately as follows : 

* The personnel of establishments which, while they happen to be 
located in Washington, are not attached to the central administration, is 
regarded, of course, as falling in the field service. The Washington 
navy yard and the Washington post office are the two chief establish- 
ments in this class. 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

Approximate Number of Employees in the Executive and Admin- 
istrative Services of the Federal Government, July i, 1919.^ 

The White House 47 

Department of State 2,019 

Treasury Department 61,640 

Department of Justice 5)722 

War Department (August i, 1919) 195)256 

Navy Department 107,788 

Post Office Department 286,840 

Department of the Interior 18,660 

Department of Agriculture • 22,972 

Department of Commerce 10,632 

Department of Labor 3)675 

Interstate Commerce Commission 2,214 

Civil Service Commission 306 

Federal Reserve Board 167 

Federal Trade Commission 335 

United States Shipping Board (including Emergency Fleet 

Corporation) ii)07i 

The Panama Canal I7)S94 

Government Printing Office 4)773 

Smithsonian Institution 433 

Alien Property Custodian 328 

Other Independent Establishments, Boards, Commissions, etc. 4,623 

Total (approximate) 757,095 

On July I, 19 19 the total number of civil employees in the 
executive and administrative services of the federal govern- 
ment amounted to something over 750,000. In considering 
this figure it is to be taken into account, of course, that the 
personnel of many of the services w^as somewhat swollen as 
the result of conditions growing out of the war. On the other 
hand, it has been demonstrated that the greater number of the 
services thus affected will continue to require a personnel far 
in excess of that which they had prior to the war, while some, 
for example, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, will probably 
undergo enlargement. The total given thus may be taken as 
representing in an approximate manner the size of the civil 
personnel of the executive and administrative branches of the 
federal government. 

* The details are given in the Appendix, Table I. 



4 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Geographical Distribution of Executive Civil Service. — 

A factor of no little importance in considering the size of the 
executive civil service is that of the distribution of this force 
between the departmental personnel at Washington and the 
field services whose duties are performed at points outside of 
the seat of government. The tendency is very pronounced to 
look upon Washington as the seat of the government's activi- 
ties and to over-emphasize the problems of personnel having 
to do with the departmental services. In fact, much of the 
work carried on in Washington is but the supervision and the 
official recording of the real work which is done at various 
points throughout the country. Such central control and 
record work requires, of course, clerical labor in far greater 
proportion than does the actual technical or industrial work 
controlled and recorded. Washington is, moreover, the seat 
of tlfose relatively few yet large services where work is almost 
exclusively clerical — the Veterans' Bureau, the Pension Office, 
the Census Office, and the like. Even with all these factors 
present, however, the purely clerical population of the govern- 
ment establishments in Washington is much less than is com- 
monly supposed. 

The distribution of the federal personnel between Wash- 
ington and the field on June 30, 191 9, as derived from the 
tabulation of the Census Bureau ^ is given opposite. 

No general figures are available of the distribution of the 
federal personnel among the several cities and states, but 
figures compiled by the Civil Service Commission in 191 3, 
show that there were in the classified service in New York 
City in that year 20,007 persons, including 11,031 in the Post 
Office Service, 3,869 in the Navy Yard, 2,607 in the Customs 
Service, 436 in the Immigration Service, 351 in the Railway 
Mail Service, and 261 in the Lighthouse Service.^ 

In addition to the 20,000 or more "classified" employees 
there shown there were laborers, numbering, doubtless, several 
thousands. 

^ Official Register of the United States, 1919, pp. 10 to 12. 
* The details are given in the Appendijc, Table II, 



INTRODUCTORY 



Approximate Number of Civil Employees in the Executive and 
Administrative Services of the Federal Government, July 
I, 1919, Classified by Location 



Services 



The White House 

Department of State 

Treasury Department 

Department of Justice 

War Department (Civilian 

employees) 

Navy Department (Civilian 

employees) 

Post Office Department . . . 
Department of the Interior 
Department of Agriculture 
Department of Commerce . . 

Department of Labor 

Interstate Commerce Commis- 



Employed in 
District of 
Columbia 



sion 

Civil Service Commission . 

Federal Reserve Board . . . 

Federal Trade Commission 

United States Shipping Board, 
Emergency Fleet Corpora 
tion 

The Panama Canal , 

Government Printing Office . 

Smithsonian Institution 

Alien Property Custodian . . . 

Bureau of Efficiency 

United States Tariff Commis 



sion 

Employees' Compensation Com- 
mission 

Federal Board for Vocational 
Education 

State, War, and Navy Build- 
ings 

Council of National Defense 

Boards, Commissions, etc. . . . 
Grand Total 



47 

1,132 

28,366 

734 

17,660 

10,505 
1,784 
5,562 
5,056 
2,198 
766 

806 
260 
143 

335 



2,035 
138 

4,773 
433 
294 

24 

54 

49 

387 

1,806 

91 

158 

' 85,596 



Employed Out 

side of District 

of Columbia 



887 

33,274 
4,988 

177,596 

97,283 

285,056 

13,098 

17,916 

8,434 

2,909 

1,408 
46 
24 



9,036 
17,456 



34 



2,054 



671,499 



Total 



47 

2,019 

61,640 

5,722 

195,256 

107,788 

286,840 

18,660 

22,972 

10,632 

3,675 

2,214 
306 
167 
335 



11,071 

17,594 

4,773 

433 

328 

24 

54 

49 

2,441 

1,806 

91 

158 

' 757,095 



^This total does not include the following: 2164 officers and em- 
ployees of the Senate and House of Representatives; the 1363 officers and 



6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

On July I, 1 91 9, the total number of civil employees located 
in Washington was slightly in excess of 85,000. If to this is 
added the number of civil employees attached to Congress and 
other employees indicated by the footnote, the total amounted 
to approximately 100,000. It is probable that this number has 
undergone some diminution as the services have more and 
more adjusted themselves to peace conditions. On the other 
hand, the constantly increasing scope of the activities of the 
national government brings with it a corresponding increase 
in personnel. It is thus not far out of the way to view the 
problem of the departmental personnel at Washington as one 
having to do with a total of from 80,000 to 100,000 employees. 
Character of Employments in the Executive Service. — 
An appreciation of the diversity of occupations in the federal 
civil service is indispensable for a real understanding of the 
federal personnel problem. When that diversity is grasped, 
the impracticability becomes apparent of attempting to apply 
to the whole of the federal service a single uniform and un- 
varying rule or practice with respect to any one of the major 
elements of personnel administration. 

There exists no single comprehensive classification of all 
federal employments so presented as to give merely by the 
titles a complete picture of the service. The recent report of 
the Reclassification Commission has presented, however, and 
for the first time, a comprehensive classification of positions 
found in the federal departments at Washington. The clas- 
sification proposed by the Commission groups all the positions 
at Washington into 376 distinct categories, each of which is 
known as a series. Each series embraces positions involving 

employees of the Railroad Administration, on duty in Washington; the 
2400 yeomen (F) ; an average of 1900 temporary laborers on outside 
work for the District of Columbia ; the 5627 regular employees of the 
District of Columbia ; nor the 568 employees of the Library of Congress. 
Adding these omitted classes to the totals given above, the result would 
equal the corresponding totals given on page 10 of the Official Register for 
1919, as follows : 

Employed in the District 99,618 

Employed outside of the District 671,499 

Total 771,117 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

substantially the same kind of work. The series are subdi- 
vided into what the Commission terms classes on the basis of 
the difficulty of the exact duties performed and the degree of 
responsibility involved. The total number of these classes is 
1,762. 

Undoubtedly were a similar form of classification to be 
extended to the field services, the total number of series and 
of grades would be greatly enlarged. 

Passing to the matter of the numerical distribution of the 
personnel among these numerous classes of employment, the 
multiplicity of specialized employments makes any brief, sum- 
mary classification difficult and largely arbitrary. For the pur- 
pose in hand, however, they may be regarded as falling roughly 
into six broad groups: (i) directing, (2) technical or pro- 
fessional, (3) specialized, (4) clerical, (5) mechanical, and 
(6) labor. 

The broad distinctions indicated by these terms are suf- 
ficiently clear, except as to that between the technical, or pro- 
fessional, and the specialized personnel. The distinction here 
intended to be drawn is of basic importance in any considera- 
tion of the federal personnel problem. Under the term pro- 
fessional, or technical, personnel are included all those various 
employments which require qualifications and give experience 
substantially similar to what is involved in the business, pro- 
fessional, or academic world. Such, for example, are the 
positions of physician in the Public Health Service, attorney 
in the Department of Justice, or of engineer in the War De- 
partment. By specialized personnel are meant those positions 
which, while frequently requiring a high degree of skill and 
experience, are peculiar to the government service and are not 
found in the outside world. The posts of Superintendent of 
Mails, of Indian Superintendent, and of Consul, are examples 
of this group. 

The classes which have been indicated, of course, are not 
sharply marked off from one another. The higher clerical 
positions merge in many instances into what has been desig- 
nated the specialized class, and, in some cases, into the direct- 



8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ing class; and the line between the professional and the spe- 
cialized classes, which has just been drawn, is not clear at all 
points. Nevertheless, for purposes of discussion, the dis- 
tinctions drawn are real and useful. 

Since the classification suggested is wholly unofficial, no 
figures, or even primary data, exist from which the numbers 
embraced in the several classes can be accurately determined. 
Such figures would be of great value in furnishing the true 
perspective in which all proposals bearing on personnel ad- 
ministration should be viewed. There are available, however, 
figures compiled in 1907 by the Census Bureau as the result of 
a special census of government employees.^ 

The figures recognize each of the classes above mentioned 
except the specialized class, the members of which were re- 
garded as falling under one or another of the other classes, pre- 
sumably chiefly under the clerical and the technical ; postal and 
railway mail clerks being classified, for example, as clerical. 
The figures given below are as of July i, 1907, and are based 
on the titles of the positions held by the incumbents and not 
on a statement of their duties. The report of the Reclassi- 
fication Commission emphasizes the fact previously proven 
that the titles are not descriptive. The title "clerk," for ex- 
ample, embraces many who are in reality stenographers, com- 
puters, and calculators, or followers of some other specialized 
occupation. The figures, therefore, should be regarded only 
as giving a general picture of the service, not precise details. 

Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by 
Occupations ^ 
Executive : 

Chiefs of divisions, chief clerks, and officers in charge . . 985 

Heads of Departments, independent offices, and bureaus . . 165 

Heads of local offices 331 

Melters, Mint and Assay Service 355 

Superintendents, miscellaneous, not including superin- 
tendents of construction 187 

Superintendents of Indian schools 134 

Total : Executive 2,157 

* "Statistics of Employees, Executive Civil Service of the United 
States," by Levi^is Meriam, 1907, Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 94. 
^ Taken from Table 74, p. 117, of "Statistics of Employees." 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by 
Occupations — Continued 

Professional, technical, and scientific: 

Architects 7 

Attorneys 89 

Botanists 106 

Chaplains 3 

Chemists and physicists 182 

Curators 29 

Draftsmen, artists, illustrators, etc 1,068 

Electricians and dynamo tenders 215 

Engineers, civil, mechanical, and electrical 993 

Engravers 123 

Fish culturists 42 

Geographers, geologists, and paleontologists 129 

Inspectors, live stock, meat, and dairy products, and vet- 
erinarians i>987 

Inspectors, steam vessels 174 

Internes 4 

Masters, mates, pilots, and captains 702 

Members of Board of Pension Appeals 28 

Musicians 40 

Nurses 142 

Observers, Weather . Bureau 391 

Patent examiners 303 

Pharmacists 55 

Physicians and surgeons 449 

Scientific experts and investigators 715 

Special agents, experts, appraisers, and commissioners . . 1,403 

Statisticians 82 

Surveyors and levelers 143 

Technical employees, Mint and Assay Service yy 

Zoologists 64 

Total : Professional, technical, and scientific 9>745 

Clerical : 

Bookkeepers, accountants, pay clerks, etc 755 

Carriers, mail 62,084 

Cashiers and tellers 302 

Clerks 38,168 

Computers and calculators 57 

Editors and compilers 56 

Interpreters 167 

Law^ clerks 212 

Librarians 84 

Office deputy United States marshals 917 



lo THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by 
Occupations — Continued 

Postmasters, assistant 1,202 

Private secretaries ^ ^ ^ 

Railw^ay postal clerks 13)924 

Stenographers and typists i.S^^ 

Storekeepers 335 

Superintendents or clerks in charge of stations 2,001 

Teachers • ^55 

Telegraph and telephone operators 74 

Translators 20 

Total: Clerical 122,636 

Mechanical : 

Building tradesmen 394 

Engineers, steam ^A^3 

General mechanics 397 

Leather workers 153 

Lithographers 1 5 

Metal workers 2,580 

Photographers 43 

Plate printers • 7°^ 

Printing tradesmen 1,801 

Woodworkers i>092 

Total : Mechanical 8,596 

Sub-clerical and manual labor : 

Apprentices 183 

Assistant microscopists — 

Cooks and bakers 548 

Custodians and miscellaneous keepers 362 

Domestics and waiters 319 

Farmers 469 

Firemen i)i46 

Foremen 1,000 

Gaugers 2,301 

Guards i,974 

Hospital attendants 847 

Industrial teachers 83 

Janitors, cleaners, scrubbers, charwomen, etc 2,081 

Keepers, Light-House Service 1,566 

Laborers, unskilled 9,564 

Matrons 486 

Messengers 2,036 

Openers and packers 593 



INTRODUCTORY ii 

Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by 
Occupations — Continued 

Samplers / 133 

Skilled laborers and workmen 6,968 

Stewards and quartermasters 189 

Stock examiners and taggers 556 

Surfmen, Life-Saving Service 1,675 

Surveymen 171 

Watchmen, detectives, doorkeepers, gatemen, and elevator 

conductors 15847 

Total : Sub-clerical and manual labor 37,097 

Miscellaneous : 

Commissioned officers 139 

Deputy collectors 2,080 

Inspectors, Customs Service 1,528 

Inspectors, immigrant, Chinese, sanitary, and school .... 482 

Inspectors, post office 398 

Inspectors, work and materials 797 

Student assistants and collaborators loi 

Officers of tribal courts 118 

Total : Miscellaneous 5,643 

Grand Total 185,874 



While this table is valuable as reflecting the diversity of 
the occupations in the service and indicating roughly their 
numerical distribution, a summary compiled from the fore- 
going would be misleading, ov^ing to the omission from the 
table, for special reasons not here relevant, of 62,663 post- 
masters, 18,376 mechanics and laborers at Navy Yards and 
Naval Stations, and 12,850 clerks in post offices not having 
free delivery; and because in the table the great body of letter 
carriers, railv^ay mail clerks, and postal clerks are grouped 
under the clerical class, a grouping v^hich, however correct 
technically, fails to bring out the clear line between these spe- 
cialized employees and the ordinary clerical employees of the 
government. In the following summary table the omissions 
mentioned have been remedied and the figures for the postal 
service set out separately. The War and Navy Departments, 



12 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



owing to the large mechanical and labor forces employed in 
arsenals, navy yards, and the like also present special points 
of interest which makes it desirable that they be set out sepa- 
rately. 

Executive Civil Service Employees, 1907, Classified by Main 
Groups of Occupations 





All 
Services 


Total 


Other than 
Post Office Department 


o| 

Oa 

Q 


Groups 


Other than 
War and 
Navy De- 
partments 


War and 
Navy De- 
partments 


Total 

Executive 

Professional, 
Technical, and 
Scientific 

Clerical 

Mechanical . . . 

Sub-clerical and 
Labor 

Miscellaneous . 


279,763 

2,157 

9,745 

198,149 

26,972 

37,097 
5,643 


97,439 
2,020 

9,714 
17,775 
26,888 

35,793 
5,249 


57,487 
1,741 

7,825 

13,499 
4,112 

25,821 
4,489 


39,952 
279 

1,889 

4,276 

22,776 2 

9,972 
760 


182,324 
137 

31 
180,374 ^ 
84 

1,304 
394 



^All postmasters, 62,663 in number, have been included in this item, 
although some hundreds of them in charge of the larger offices would more 
properly be classed as executive; 12,850 clerks in offices not having free 
delivery, excluded from the previous table, are also included in this item. 

^ 18,376 mechanics and laborers in Navy Yards not included in the 
preceding table are included in this item, it being impossible to distinguish 
between those properly classed as mechanics and those properly classed as 
laborers. 



Examination of these figures discloses that, in 1907, if the 
Postal Service, which, of course, is in a class by itself, be ex- 
cluded, the clerical employees of the government numbered 
less than 20 per cent of the whole. They were outnumbered 
by the mechanical employees, who comprised some 28 per 
cent, and they were less than half as numerous as the sub- 
clerical and labor employees (subclerical includes messengers, 
watchmen, etc.) and they were less than twice as numerous 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

as the professional, technical, and scientific group. These cal- 
culations embrace, however, the War and Navy Departments 
with their arsenals and navy yards employing the greater pro- 
portion of the mechanical employees above referred to as com- 
prising 28 per cent of the whole. Even if these two depart- 
ments be excluded from consideration, however, the clerical 
employees will be found in the 1907 figures to total consid- 
erably under 25 per cent of the whole, the professional em- 
ployees about 13 per cent, mechanical employees about 7 per 
cent, and the subclerical and labor employees over 45 per cent. 

While the federal service, of course, has expanded enor- 
mously since 1907, it is probable that the relative distribution 
of the personnel to-day would not be widely different from 
that disclosed by these figures. What changes have taken 
place doubtless have been in the direction of increasing the 
relative importance of the technical and mechanical employees. 
Even before the war, the tendency was increasingly toward 
an enlargement of the government's own arsenals and naval 
ordnance factories; while the scientific research bureaus ex- 
perienced a very rapid development in the decade preceding 
the war. 

It is thus even truer perhaps to-day than the tables pre- 
sented show it to have been in 1907, that the "government 
clerk" is by no means so dominant a factor in the federal per- 
sonnel problem as he is conceived in the popular imagination. 

The conception of the national governmental machine as 
a vast circumlocution office occupied solely by clerks engaged 
in the preparation, copying, filing, and indexing of official 
papers may have had some validity a few score years ago ; but 
it is now utterly erroneous. In only a few of the services is 
the burden of the real work carried on by clerks. In almost 
every case the work requires and is performed by technical 
men. The exaggerated number of clerical workers in the con- 
ventional personnel picture is doubtless due in part to the fact 
that when the average citizen comes into contact with the op- 
erations by the government at all, it is generally with a clerk 
that he has to do business. The innumerable and extensive 



14 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

technical, industrial, inspectional, and protective services of the 
government are carried on silently and without the knowledge 
of the man in the street. 

Regarding government employees in the District of Co- 
lumbia, more recent statistics have been supplied by the Con- 
gressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries. 
The Commission's figures relate to April 30, 19 19, and in- 
clude all employees within their jurisdiction who work full 
time and who receive, in addition to their salaries, no allow- 
ance for board and lodging. All public employees in the 
District of Columbia are included except those in the Postal 
Service and in the Navy Yard. The figures, therefore, in- 
clude the teachers, the police, the firemen, and other municipal 
and court employees who are beyond the scope of the present 
volume. 

In using these statistics, it should be borne in mind that 
the grouping of classes into services used by the Commission is 
not based on general statistical considerations. This group- 
ing has attempted to place in the same service, or in the same 
series within a service, the classes of positions which may lie 
within the same line of normal advancement. Since one of 
its aims was to work in the direction of making possible suc- 
cessful careers in the government service, it has at times put 
into the same service positions requiring very general, ele- 
mentary qualifications and those requiring high technical, or 
scientific, attainments in the same line, and almost uniformly 
it has placed administrators in the same service with the em- 
ployees they administer. Only when the work supervised falls 
in two or more different services are the administrators com- 
monly placed in a distinct service. The statistics of this 
grouping were compiled for individual classes set up to 
aid the Commission in arriving at its recommendations re- 
garding salaries and not to give a statistical picture of the gov- 
ernment service at Washington. They may be used, however, 
for this latter purpose, and a summary of them is presented 
in the tabular statement that follows. 

These statistics, it should be noted, are based, not on the 



INTRODUCTORY 15 

official payroll title of the employee, nor upon the common 
or office title, but on a statement of the duties actually per- 
formed by the employee, as given both by the employee him- 
self and his immediate superior. In this respect they are 
much more accurate and reliable than figures based on 
titles.! 

Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919^ 

Services involving clerical, office, or commercial vi^ork (ex- 
clusive of statistics) : 

Administrative and Supervisory Clerical Service 543 

Assessor and Appraiser Service 80 

Court Clerk and Docket ^Service 81 

Departmental Publications and Information Service . . . 1,030 

Fiscal and Accounting Service 6,624 

Mail, File, and Record Service 18,044 

Messenger Service 3,433 

Office Appliance Operating Service 2,057 

Personnel Service 1,277 

Specialized Business Service 624 

Supply and Equipment Service 3,i79 

Telephone and Telegraph Operating Service 510 

Typing, Stenographic, Correspondence, and Secretarial 

Service 15,929 

Miscellaneous Clerical Service 5,737 

Total 59,148 

Services involving the skilled trades, manual labor, public 
safety, or related v^^ork: 

Custodial and Janitor Service 3,908 

Detention and Reformatory Service 36 

Domestic Service 198 

Engineman Service 611 

Farm, Garden, and Park Maintenance Service 347 

Fire Service 634 

Investigational and Inspectional Service 160 

Marine Operating Service 13 

Police and Criminal Investigation Service 892 

Printing Trades Service 7,7i7 

^ For an interesting demonstration of how meaningless position titles 
inthe government service are, see the report of the Reclassification Com- 
mission, Part I, p. 44, et seq. 

*For a more detailed statement, see Appendix, Table III. 



i6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, igig— Continued 

Skilled Trades and Labor Service: 

Chauffeur 450 

General Carpenter 302 

Electrician 167 

Elevator Conductor 256 

Laborer 1,069 

Freight Handler 493 

Mail Bag Sewer 113 

Mailer and Wrapper 141 

Helper, Mechanical Trades 407 

Packer 132 

Teamster I7S 

Shop Porter 1,112 

Laboratory » 100 

Other classes i,530 6,447 

Total 20,963 

Services involving scientific, technical, professional, or sub- 
sidiary work: 

Actuarial Service 8 

Agricultural Promotion and Extension Service 252 

Architectural Service 288 

Arts Service 468 

Biological Science Service 537 

Chaplain Service 2 

Community and Recreation Service 41 

Economic and Political Science Service 156 

Educational Service 2,058 

Engineering Service 2,072 

Law and Examiner Service 2,712 

Library Service 619 

Medical Science Service 136 

Nursing Service 56 

Patent Service 435 

Physical Science Service 889 

Social Science Service 349 

Statistical Service ^ 3,243 

Translating Service 124 

Total 14,445 

Grand Total 94,556 



* AH but 103 of these are in statistical clerical or mechanical tabulation 
work. 



INTRODUCTORY 17 

Women in the Executive Civil Service. — The extent to 
which women are or may be employed in a service has an im- 
portant bearing on many problems of personnel administra- 
tion. The earlier history of the employment of women in 
the federal civil service is given in a letter from Charles Lyman, 
Civil Service Commissioner to Hon. Henry W. Blair of the 
House of Representatives, dated June 19, 1894. The letter 
reads in part as follows : 

Women were first employed in the public service in Wash- 
ington under authorization of law in 1862, at a compensation 
of $600 per annum, and in the ofhce of the Treasurer of the 
United States, under General Spinner.^ Previous to that time 
a few women had been employed temporarily in the ofhce of 
the Secretary of the Treasury, not, however, in a clerical ca- 
pacity, but in the mechanical labor of clipping the fractional 
currency. 

Shortly after the organization of the Internal Revenue 
Bureau in August, 1862, probably as early as the ist of Janu- 
ary, 1863, and perhaps earlier, a few women were employed 
in that bureau at a salary of $600 per annum. Subsequently 
the salaries of women were increased in the appropriation 
acts to $720 per annum and to $900 per annum; and for a 
number of years no women were employed at a salary above 
$900, and that gra^e was practically monopolized by them, 
but few men being appointed thereto. In a few instances 
women were promoted to $1,000 and $1,200 salaries, and even 
to higher grades, before the passage of the civil service law; 
but these cases were rare exceptions. 

The effect of the Civil Service law, however, aided by a 
gradual change in public sentiment in relation to the employ- 
ment of women in occupations before monopolized by men, 
has been to open to women in the public service the higher 
grades; and at the present time (June 14, 1894), a large num- 
ber of women have won their way, in competition with men, 
into the more lucrative and responsible places in that service. 

Since promotions in the departments have been made on 
the basis of efficiency records kept in the departments, and the 
more or less close competitive tests which have supplemented 
those records, there has been a decided increase in the propor- 

^A letter from General Spinner to Colonel Frank Jones, written in 
1886, states that these women were employed in trimming and counting 
bank notes, which they could do better and cheaper than men. 



1 8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tion of women promoted, which shows that when women in 
the pubHc service have a fair and even chance with the men, 
they win their full share of the lucrative and responsible po- 
sitions. 

There is no doubt that the employment of women in the 
public service has, on the whole, had a beneficial effect upon 
that service, and has measurably increased its efficiency. . . . 

For 1907 the Bureau of the Census published fairly com- 
plete statistics regarding the number of women employed, their 
salaries, and their occupations as well as their age, marital 
condition, and length of service. This compilation showed 
that on July i, 1907, there was a total of 13,821 women in the 
civil service, of whom 7,358 were employed in the District 
of Columbia and 6,463 elsewhere. The number employed 
in the District of Columbia represented somewhat less than 
8 per cent of the total number of government employees there 
employed and they were of far less relative importance among 
employees outside of Washington, The tendency of the years 
immediately preceding the war was undoubtedly toward a sub- 
stantial increase in the employment of women, and the war 
brought a great influx into the government service of women 
war workers. Within two years the number of employees in 
the service at Washington more than doubled and the greater 
part of this body of new employees were women. 

The Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification 
of Salaries compiled statistics regarding the sex of the em- 
ployees in the numerically important classes in the service at 
Washington. All classes containing 100 or more employees 
were taken; and for these classes the percentage of the total 
made up of women was approximately 62. In other words, 
three employees out of five in these classes were women. The 
figures for each of these numerically important classes are 
given below. It will be noted that all the large clerical classes 
and the educational classes have been included and that the 
proportion of women is very high in such classes. If the 
s^ipaller classes had been included, the proportion of women 
would have been reduced considerably.^ 

* See Appendix, Table III. 



PART I 

THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICS FROM THE 
EXECUTIVE CIVIL SERVICE 

CHAPTER II 

' INTRODUCTORY 

Dual Character o£ the Federal Personnel Problem. — The 

federal personnel problem, like the problem of any public 
personnel system, is both a political and an administrative 
one. The political problem is purely a negative one — how to 
exclude from the workings of the personnel system the in- 
fluence of politics and of politicians. Not until this problem 
has been substantially solved can the positive and technical 
problems of personnel administration, or indeed of admin- 
istration generally, be successfully attacked. As was force- 
fully stated by Franklin MacVeagh, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, in 1910, in discussing the problem of administrative im- 
provement in his department : 

Any one, however, who comes close to the practical admin- 
istration of the Federal Government — or of any other gov- 
ernment — soon becomes aware that everything ultimate or final 
in the excellence of administration must wait upon the com- 
plete inclusion of all non-political offices within the classified 
service, and that progress in the administration meanwhile will 
materially depend upon the broadening of that service.^ 

* Quoted in the Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil 
Service Commission (1910), p. 137. As will be shown in the following 
chapters, the inclusion of all non-political officers in the "classified service," 
using that term technically, is not indispensable. What is essential is that 
their selection be placed upon a formal merit basis. This can be accom- 
plished without their inclusion in the classified service, very desirable 
though such inclusion would be. 

19 



20 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

There is a too easy and general assumption that in the 
federal service this problem of entirely divorcing the admin- 
istration of personnel matters from politics has been met with 
substantial completeness. Such is far from the case. The 
present volume is accordingly divided into two parts — the 
first dealing with the measures necessary to effect the complete 
divorce of the personnel system from politics, the second with 
the problem of personnel administration proper. Necessarily, 
however, even in the second section consideration must be 
given at many points to the safeguarding of personnel meth- 
ods from political influence, for not only has the complete 
expulsion of politics from the personnel system contended for 
in the first section not yet been achieved; but even if it had 
been, there would be need of eternal vigilance to prevent its re- 
entry. 

Elimination of the Political Factor in Selection the First 
Essential to an Efficient Personnel System. — In any at- 
tempt to divorce a pubHc personnel system from pohtics 
or related improper forces, the obvious point of attack is 
the system of selection. So long as politics dominates, or 
has any substantial influence in, the process of initial re- 
cruitment no substantial progress can be made in eHminat- 
ing it from the administration of the personnel system 
proper. Only when the entire administrative personnel, 
and in particular the directing personnel, are originally 
selected wholly without regard to political or cognate 
influence will it be possible to ehminate poHtical influence 
in assignment, promotion, demotion, increases or reductions 
of salary, removals, retirement, and other substantive matters. 
To discuss at length the evils which flow from the selec- 
tion of the administrative personnel of the government on 
political grounds instead of on merit is unnecessary. They 
are too obvious and too widely recognized. It should be 
pointed out, however, that the entrance of politics into the 
selection of employees is far more serious when it affects local 
offices than when it affects the offices at Washington. The 
local employee who is selected for political reasons remains 



INTRODUCTORY ^t 

an active political factor, at all times more or less under the 
eye of those politicians to whom he owes his place, and politics 
attends his footsteps at every point in his official history. The 
officer or employee who receives appointment at Washington, 
on the other hand, frequently becomes of no account as a di- 
rect political factor, and, in time, may lose any outstanding 
character as a political appointee and be hardly distinguishable 
from those who entered the service entirely by merit. 

Again, from the standpoint of personnel administration, 
it should be noted that the selection of the directing personnel 
by politics, while the subordinate personnel are selected on a 
merit basis, has an evil influence far out of proportion to the 
actual numbers of the directing personnel. In the first place, 
the political selection of the directing personnel obviously 
means that they are selected from outside the service and, con- 
sequently, advancement to higher posts in the service is barred 
to the permanent subordinate personnel, except in those in- 
stances, fortunately few, in which the permanent employee 
is also active in politics. This is notoriously the condition in 
the federal service at the present time. Only in the strictly 
technical services is the chief directing personnel now nor- 
mally selected on merit. The geologist may become Director 
of the Geological Survey, the physician, Surgeon General of 
the Public Health Service. Once the strictly technical serv- 
ices are left behind, however, the situation changes abruptly. 
The customs inspector or appraiser can never become, in the 
ordinary course. Collector of Customs, the immigrant inspector, 
Commissioner of Immigration, the clerk or examiner in the 
internal revenue office, Collector of Internal Revenue. Simi- 
larly, in the services at Washington which are not strictly 
technical, the clerk, examiner, or minor executive, who, through 
long service and innate ability, has qualified himself for ad- 
ministrative work of the first order is barred from the head- 
ship of the service, from the deputy headship, and, very fre- 
quently, from several of the other more important adminis- 
trative positions at the top of the service, not to mention the 
assistant secretaryship of the department. Occasional excep- 



22 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tions are found to this rule ; but they are not frequent enough 
really to color the picture. It thus may be said with sub- 
stantial accuracy that one entering the service of the govern- 
ment in a minor administrative, statistical, or legal capacity 
has no reasonable expectation of rising to the head of the 
service. 

The second reason why the political selection of the direct- 
ing employees is so disastrous is that such officers must, in 
any system, be permitted a large measure of discretion in their 
control over the fortunes of the subordinate personnel, par- 
ticularly with respect to such matters as assignment, transfer, 
promotion, salary increases, and the like. Where the admin- 
istrative officer, himself a political appointee, is vested with 
authority in these matters, his action in respect to them, how- 
ever honorable, and however single in its purpose to advance 
the good of the service, is always open to the suspicion of 
having been dictated by political considerations. The destruc- 
tive effect of this atmosphere of suspicion on the morale of 
the subordinate personnel need not be enlarged upon. 

Closely related to this aspect of the matter is the fact that, 
where the directing personnel are admittedly political ap- 
pointees, they naturally, and indeed almost inevitably, con- 
tinue to be politically active while in public office. At the 
same time nothing is better established than that the success 
of a public personnel system demands that severe restrictions 
be placed upon the political activity of permanent non-political 
employees. , But the difficulty of enforcing these restrictions 
upon the subordinate personnel through the medium of a su- 
perior who is himself, in the nature of the case, primarily in- 
terested in the maintenance of political activity, is readily 
imagined. Even where the political head of the establishment 
takes no step to encourage it, and even in fact where he may 
publicly announce his opposition to it, there is always the 
temptation to the employee so minded to believe that a judi- 
cious amount of political activity would be acceptable to the 
head. Despite severe regulations to the contrary, therefore, 
it has been found impossible in the federal service entirely to 



INTRODUCTORY 23 

suppress political activity among the subordinate employees 
of those local offices in which the heads are political appointees. 

Pernicious as the appointment of the directing personnel 
is from any administrative standpoint, it is especially baneful 
in its effects on personnel administration. The political ap- 
pointee, however able an administrator he may be in gen- 
eral, is seldom able to administer personnel matters as effec- 
tively as the permanent non-political officer. The reason is 
that, not having himself served in the ranks, and made the 
service his life work, he finds it difficult to put himself in the 
position of the employee, and indeed not infrequently does not 
think it necessary to do so. It is undoubtedly largely on this 
score that the failure of the federal personnel system to de- 
velop along advanced lines, even within the area where Con- 
gress has permitted the President and the departmental of- 
ficers wide latitude, is to be explained. The effective devel- 
opment of personnel policies is not reasonably to be expected 
from political careerists, however well intentioned. 

The evil results of the political selection of subordinate 
employees need only be mentioned to be recognized. Looked 
at solely from the standpoint of the personnel system, such 
selection means inefficient service, improper control by the 
heads of the service through inability to remove or demote 
those appointed for political reasons, unfairness in promotion, 
advancement, and the like, and the weakening of the morale 
of the non-political personnel, which follows as a necessary 
result. 

In presenting the evil results which flow from political 
selection, and particularly when attention is directed to a spe- 
cific case or to the case of a specific individual, it is easy to 
get the impression that the evil done in that particular case is 
slight: especially is this so if the position to which entrance is 
thus given without competition or other test of merit is one 
of minor importance. It must always be remembered, how- 
ever, that one who enters service through political influence 
quite frequently, as is indeed natural, secures much more rapid 
advancement in the service than do his or her associates who 



24 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

have entered by the competitive route and have no poHtical 
or other influence to assist them in their efforts for promo- 
tion. The influence of poHtical assistance thus projects itself 
far beyond the mere entrance gate and is likely to endure 
throughout the entire service history of the political appointee 
as a factor making for justified resentment and discontent 
among non-political employees. 

Means of Elimination of the Political Factor. — The 
measures which may be taken to eliminate politics from initial 
selection, and, in general, to effect the divorce of the personnel 
system from politics fall into two distinct classes. In the 
first class are those which limit more or less completely the 
discretion of the administrative officer in matters of personnel, 
substituting for such discretion methods of a mechanical or 
formal character. Here the effort is to prevent the abuse of 
administrative discretion for political purposes by destroying 
that discretion in greater or less degree. In the second class 
are those measures which seek to prevent administrative of- 
ficers and employees from undue political activity and con- 
versely to prevent politicians outside the administration from 
attempting to influence the action of the administrator in 
personnel matters. * Here the attempt is not to limit adminis- 
trative discretion but to protect it as fully as possible from 
contact with political influences. 

Abstract theory would seem to demand that, so far as 
practicable, reliance be placed on measures of the second class ; 
for the limitation of administrative discretion is plainly in itself 
an evil, to be endured only because it is a less evil than the 
use of that discretion for political ends. Experience has 
proved, however, that whatever the value of measures of the 
second type, the chief measure which must be relied on to 
effect the divorce from politics of a personnel system which 
has long been wedded to politics is to substitute for adminis- 
trative discretion in selection a formal system of selection, 
preferably based on open competitive examination. The in- 
stitution of such methods of selection, therefore, has come to 
be accepted as the characteristic and central measure of any 



INTRODUCTORY 25 

program to cleanse the public personnel system o£ political 
influences; and it is to the present extent and incidence of 
such methods in the federal service that attention will primarily 
be given in the chapters immediately following. The limi- 
tations on administrative discretion with respect to removals, 
a matter closely bound up with that of selection, will also be 
reviewed. Then will be considered what may, and should be, 
done in the direction of preventing contact between the admin- 
istrative personnel, both superior and subordinate, and the 
politician. 

In the first of the succeeding chapters are reviewed the 
varied legal provisions by which formal systems of selection 
for appointment have been applied to the several branches of 
the federal service; in the following chapter the areas of the 
service to which no such methods have been applied are ex- 
amined in detail and a program for the application of such 
methods to those areas is developed. 



CHAPTER III 

THE LAW AND TRADITION OF SELECTION AND TENURE 

The Civil Service Reform Movement. — The body of law 
and practice designed to prevent the entrance of political and 
other improper considerations into the process of selection is, 
in the main, the product of a great popular movement in the 
seventies and eighties. To review the details of the history 
of that movement would be of little value for the present 
purpose. It is of interest, however, to point out that the enact- 
ment of the civil service law, and the subsequent development 
of regulations and procedure making it effective, were forced 
to successful issue by a powerful popular support in the face 
of determined opposition from those in control of party and 
of government. The force behind that support was the more 
remarkable because it represented the economic or social as- 
pirations of no particular group of the community. It may 
be said of it, as of few other forces in our political history, 
that it sprang from a moral or idealistic revolt on the part of 
citizens of all such groups, against a system which debauched 
and degraded political life. Unquestionably, this force sur- 
vives in no negligible degree to this day; but springing from, 
and nourished by, the abuses which it attacked, it has weak- 
ened in proportion as those abuses have disappeared. 
Types of Systems of Formal Selection. — The systems of 
formal selection which may be established, and which indeed 
have been established over various areas of the federal serv- 
ice, may differ widely in the degree to which they impose re- 
striction upon the discretion of the appointing officer in mak- 
ing selection. In some state and municipal jurisdictions the 
law and the practice have gone to an extreme in excluding the 
administrative authorities from any participation whatever in 

26 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 27 

the administration of the selective system. In the federal serv- 
ice this extreme position has never been taken and, as will 
subsequently appear, there are substantial variations in the 
degree to which participation of the appointing officer in the 
selection process is permitted at different points of the service. 
The general development in the federal service undoubtedly 
has been consistently in the direction of narrowing discretion 
in selections. 

Three rather obvious factors determine the degree of limi- 
tation which the system places upon the discretion of the ad- 
ministrative officers : first, the extent to which the right is ac- 
corded to all who may wish to apply to place on record their 
qualifications and claims to appointment; second, the extent to 
which selection from among those admitted to application is 
determined by a competitive weighing of qualifications; and 
third, the extent to which the procedure is under the sur- 
veillance or control of an authority outside of the appointing 
power. 

A fourth factor which might be mentioned is the extent 
of publicity which prevails in the actual operation of what- 
ever system is prescribed. 

The System of Pass Examinations. — The system which 
least limits the discretion of the administrative officer is the 
so-called pass examination, administered by the appointing of- 
ficer himself. This system merely requires that no appoint- 
ment shall be made until the prospective appointee has passed 
a set test. If the service to which it is applied is small and 
appointments infrequent, this system entails virtually no limi- 
tation upon the discretion of the appointing officer, as he him- 
self decides whether the prospective appointee has passed. If, 
however, the service is large and appointments frequent, the 
appointing officer will have to delegate the actual conduct of 
the examinations to a subordinate acting under formal in- 
structions, and a measure of practical restriction on the dis- 
cretion of the appointing officer may thus be secured, though 
without legal sanction. Under this method, not only is se- 
lection from among the applicants not competitive, but no 



28 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

provision is made for inviting applications from all who choose. 
Such a provision, in the absence of competitive selection from 
among those applying, may be thought empty and futile. Such 
is not altogether the case. If applications are invited from 
all who choose to apply, a moral obligation is imposed upon 
the appointing officer at least not to examine an applicant 
clearly unfit, or even one of questionable fitness, while failing 
to examine one of distinguished qualifications; and, if there 
be any measurable publicity given to the several applications, 
even if confined to the department concerned, this moral obli- 
gation may possess some practical force. The present sys- 
tems of selection for the foreign service and for the medical 
officers of the Public Health Service are examples of the 
method here under discussion; and in both, the fact that the 
right to make formal application for examination is publicly 
held out to all, undoubtedly constitutes a limitation upon the 
freedom of selection of the appointing officers. 
The System of Competitive Examinations: Selected Ap- 
plicants. — Conversely, it is possible to devise a method by 
which application for examination is not open to all but selec- 
tion for appointment as a result of examination is nevertheless 
competitive. Under such a system it is the function of the 
appointing officer to designate for examination, entirely in his 
own discretion, a number of candidates somewhat in excess 
of the respective number of vacancies, leaving to the results of 
a competitive examination, whether conducted by the appoint- 
ing power or by independent authority, the selection of ap- 
pointees to fill those vacancies. This method, offering as it 
does a measure of competition, and yet allowing the appoint- 
ing officer discretion to bar from the examination any one 
not satisfactory to him, has been developed in but few per- 
sonnel systems and is not found at any point in the federal 
service. 

The System of Competitive Examinations: Open to All. 
— The final type of selective system, and the one which restricts 
most severely the discretion of the appointing officer, is the 
open competitive system — a system in which the right to enter 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 29 

the competition is open to all who apply, and the selection is 
determined by the results of the competition. 

The open competitive system is commonly regarded as the 
only method to be employed if political considerations are to 
be excluded from selection. Despite the essential soundness 
of this view, it is possible, as will appear in subsequent pages, 
under certain conditions, wholly to eliminate politics from 
selections by the employment of one of the other methods 
mentioned. Nevertheless, any other method than that of open 
competition is liable to spring a leak unless the conditions are 
of the best. Hence, it is believed that, unless for adminis- 
trative reasons the method of open competition is imprac- 
ticable, that method should be applied in preference to any of 
the other formal methods of selection discussed. 
The Appointing Power. — In setting forth, as this chapter 
purposes to do, the varied provisions of law and regulation 
under which formal methods of selection have been applied 
to, or excluded from, the several branches of the federal serv- 
ice, it is necessary that the basic constitutional and legal as- 
pects of the power of appointment, and of the term and tenure 
of ofBce should first be understood. 

With respect to a very small number of the positions in 
the executive civil service the Constitution expressly desig- 
nates who shall appoint. These are "ambassadors, other pub- 
lic ministers, and consuls." Under the Constitution they must 
be nominated by the President, and appointed by him by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

As to all others, it is provided that "all other officers . . . 
which shall be established by law" shall be similarly appointed 
by the President by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, but that "the Congress may by law vest the appoint- 
ment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the 
President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of de- 
partments." 

This provision, it will be noted at the outset, refers only 
to "officers." It is, however, settled law that not every per- 
son holding employment under the United States is an "of- 



30 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ficer." As distinguished from an "officer," one may be an 
"employee" or an "agent" of the United States; and to such 
this constitutional restriction as to method of appointment does 
not apply. Just what characteristics a position held under 
the United States must possess to render the incumbent an 
"officer" rather than an employee or agent has never been 
determined. The broad distinction is, of course, a clear and 
obvious one, but the zone in which it cannot be sharply drawn 
is wide. For the present purpose, however, it is sufficient to 
note that only with respect to "officers" is the appointing power 
located by the Constitution. The power to appoint employees 
and agents is regulated wholly by statute, for the Constitution 
is silent. 

Within the class of "officers," it should further be noted, 
it is only "inferior" officers whose appointment Congress may 
vest in one of the three agencies designated instead of in the 
President and Senate. What is an "inferior" officer under 
this provision has never been judicially determined. It would 
seem clear that a "head of department" cannot reasonably be 
considered an "inferior" officer; but any officer subordinate to 
the head of a department could apparently be so regarded and 
his appointment could constitutionally be vested in the Presi- 
dent alone, in a court of law, or in the head of a department. 

If this reasoning is correct, the Constitution requires that 
the method of nomination by the President, and appointment 
by him "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate" 
shall be used only in the case of "ambassadors, other public 
ministers, and consuls" (where it is explicitly required) and in 
the case of "heads of departments" (where it is impliedly, but 
no less clearly, required). The appointment of all other "of- 
ficers" may be vested in any one of four authorities, as des- 
ignated by Congress, namely ( i ) the President, with the advice 
and consent of the Senate, (2) the President alone, (3) the 
heads of departments, and' (4) the courts of law; while the 
appointment of all employees and agents who do not fall under 
the head of officers may be vested in any authority whatever 
that Congress may designate. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 31 

Criticism of this scheme of control over the allocation of 
the appointing power is, of course, wholly academic, yet it is 
of interest in the light of the development that has actually 
taken place. Senatorial confirmation of ambassadors and 
consuls resulted, and in a measure still results, in the per- 
sistence of spoils in the foreign service long beyond what 
would probably otherwise have been the case, but the fatal 
weakness of the arrangement is that it permits, and indeed by 
the implication of the language strongly supports, the intru- 
sion of senatorial confirmation in the appointment of all classes 
of officers. Had this provision of the Cbnstitution been 
omitted, the history of political institutions in the United 
States might have been materially changed for the better. 
This is not the place, however, for any extended review of 
this subject. Suffice it to say that hardly is a single instance 
to be found in which the participation of the Senate has worked 
for good, and innumerable instances can be cited in which it 
has worked for the selection of the unfit, the removal of the 
fit, and, at almost all points, for the persistence of politics 
in appointment and removal long after the President was 
willing and eager to be guided by considerations of merit 
only. 

Aside from this primary weakness, the constitutional 
scheme as a whole is open to criticism as vesting in the legis- 
lative branch a power which is essentially executive. The 
Constitution imposes upon the President the duty of seeing 
"that the laws are duly enforced." A natural implication of 
this responsibility would be the power to select the agents by 
whom the law is to be enforced. Consistency would thus re- 
quire that the entire power of appointment should be vested 
in the President, who would exercise it either directly or by 
delegating it to agents of his own selection. In practice, in- 
deed, this has been substantially the result, but the Constitution 
does not insure it. Not only may the appointment of "of- 
ficers" be required by Congress to receive the consent of the 
Senate, but it may be vested to begin within the courts of law, 



32 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

an independent branch of the government.^ Thus it is per- 
fectly possible for Congress completely to exclude the Presi- 
dent from all legal control over the appointment, or the ma- 
chinery of selection, of most of the personnel of the govern- 
ment. As indicated, the actual development under both these 
. heads, however, has placed the whole of the appointing power 
(except as it is qualified by senatorial confirmation) in the 
hands of the President or his appointees at first or second 
remove. 

Presidential Positions. — Nearly the whole body of law 
relating both to methods of selection and to tenure is based 
upon the distinction between what are known as "presiden- 
tial" and "non-presidential" positions — that is, between those 
positions to which appointment is by the President by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate and those to which 
appointment is by any other authority. That distinction, 
therefore, must be developed somewhat fully at the outset. 

Congress has by no means limited appointment by the 
President with the "advice and consent" of the Senate to the 
narrow field expressly required by the Constitution. In the 
military and naval services it has gone farthest, requiring the 
"advice and consent" of the Senate to be obtained to the ap- 
pointment of every officer, even of the lowest grade. In the 
civil service it has been less thoroughgoing. There, in the 
departments at Washington, the consent of the Senate has been 
required, with few exceptions, only in the case of the heads 
and assistant heads of departments, bureaus, and services. 
In the field services, on the other hand. Congress has been 
particularly insistent on retaining the advice and consent 
of the Senate in the appointment of officers in charge of local 
offices, even those of low degree. The postmasters of all of- 
fices showing annual receipts of $1,900 or over must be ap- 
pointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate — 

^Appointment of federal officers by federal judges was occasionally 
resorted to in the early days of the government. It survived till as late as 
1905 in the provision for the membership of the United States circuit judge 
on the board of appointment of inspectors of hulls and boilers in the 
Steamboat Inspection Service (R. S. 4415, amended by Act of March 3, 
1905, 38 Stat. 1028). 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 33 

though the number has grown every year and is now over 
10,000. Similarly, all collectors of customs and internal reve- 
nue, registers and receivers at land offices, surgeon general, 
district attorneys and marshals, and commissioned officers of 
the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
must be confirmed by the Senate. 

In most cases wherein appointment is made by the Presi- 
dent with the advice and consent of the Senate that method 
is expressly required by statute. In the remainder the statute 
is silent, but as Congress has indicated none of the other pos- 
sible methods, appointment by the President with the advice 
and consent of the Senate is required by the Constitution,^ 
since the position involved is clearly that of an "officer." ^ 

In some instances the statute vests the appointment in the 
President alone, as in the cases of the Assistant Secretaries of 
Commerce and of Labor, the Commissioner and Deputy Com- 
missioner of Lighthouses, and several other officers. 

The following is a list, as of July i, 1919, of the "presi- 
dential" positions in the executive civil service requiring con- 
firmation by the Senate : 

Department of State 
Secretary 
Undersecretary- 
Assistant Secretaries 
Ambassadors 
Ministers 

Secretaries of Embassy or Legation 
Consuls General at Large 
Consuls General 
Consular Inspectors 
Consuls 

^ "The general rule deducible from this provision (Art. II, sec. 2, of 
the Constitution) is that, in the absence of an express enactment to the 
contrary, the appointment of any officer of the United States belongs to 
the President, by and with the advice of the Senate." Opinion of the 
Attorney General, June i, 191 1, 29 Op. 116. 

" But it has lieen held that certain technical employees, the manner of 
whose appointment is not specifically provided for, are properly to be 
regarded as clerks rather than officers and as coming under section 169 of 
the Revised Statutes, which authorizes the head of a department to employ 
such number of clerks, etc., of the several classes recognized by law as 
may be appropriated for by Congress from year to year. Opinion of the 
Attorney General, June i, 191 1, 29 Op. 116. 



34 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Treasury Department 

Secretary 

Assistant Secretaries 

Solicitor 

Assistant Solicitor 
Office of the Treasurer 

Treasurer 

Assistant Treasurer 

Deputy Assistant Treasurer 

Assistant Treasurers ^ 
Bureau of Internal Revenue 

Commissioner 

Deputy Commissioners 

Solicitor 

Collectors 
Customs Service 

Collectors of Customs 

Surveyors of Customs 

Naval Officers of Customs 

Board of General Appraisers of Merchandise — Members 

Appraisers of Merchandise 

Assistant Appraisers of Merchandise 

Special Examiners of Drugs, Medicines, and Chemicals 
War Finance Corporation 

Directors 
Office of Comptroller of the Currency 

Comptroller 
United States Mint 

Director 

Superintendents of Mints 

Assayers in Charge of Mints 

Assayers 

Engraver 
Office of Register of the Treasury 

Register 

Assistant Register 
Public Health Service 

Commissioned Medical Officers 
Federal Farm Loan Board 

Members 
Office of Comptroller of Treasury ^ 

Comptroller ^ 

Assistant Comptroller ^ 

^ These were in charge of subtreasuries ; offices abolished since June 
30, 1919. 

^Changed to General Accounting Office, by Budget and Accounting 
Act of June 10, 1921, and made an independent establishment. 

^Changed to Comptroller General and Assistant Comptroller General 
by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 35 

Treasury Department — Continued 
Auditors 

Auditor for Treasury Department^ 

Auditor for War Department^ 

Auditor for Interior Department* 

Auditor for Navy Department * 

Auditor for Post Office Department ^ 

Auditor for State and Other Departments * 
War Department 

Secretary 

Assistant Secretaries ^ 
Bureau of Ordnance and Fortification 

Civilian Member * 
Mississippi River Commission 

Members 
Insular Possessions 

Governor of Porto Rico 

Attorney-General of Porto Rico 

Commissioner of Education of Porto Rico 

Governor General of Philippine Islands 

Vice Governor of the Philippine Islands 
California Debris Commission 

Members ^ 
Department of Justice 

Attorney-General 

Assistant to the Attorney-General 

Solicitor-General 

Assistant Attorneys-General 

District Attorneys 

Marshals 
Post Office Department 

Postmaster General 

Assistant Postmasters General 

Purchasing Agent 

First Class Postmasters 

Second Class Postmasters 

Third Class Postmasters 
Navy Department 

Secretary 

Assistant Secretary 

Governor of the Virgin Islands 

^Abolished by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921 ; duties are 
performed by the Comptroller General. 

^ Changed to Comptroller, Bureau of Accounts, and placed under Post 
Oflfice Department by Budget and Accounting Act of June 10, 1921. 

^ Only one Assistant Secretary at present. 

* Abolished since June 30, 1919. 

* Officers of Engineer Corps of the Army. ' 



36 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Department of the Interior 

Secretary 

Assistant Secretaries 

Solicitor 
Patent Office 

Commissioner 

Assistant Commissioners 

Examiners in Chief 
Office of Indian Affairs 

Commissioner 

Assistant Commissioner 
General Land Office 

Commissioner 

Assistant Commissioner 

Recorder 

Surveyors General 

Registers 

Receivers 
Pension Office 

Commissioner 

Deputy Commissioner 
Geological Survey 

Director 
Bureau of Mines 

Director 
Bureau of Education 

Commissioner 
Government of Territories 

Governor of Alaska 
. Governor of Hawaii 

Secretary of Hawaii 

Department of Agriculture 

Secretary 

Assistant Secretary 
Weather Bureau 

Chief 
Department of Commerce 

Secretary 

Solicitor 

Assistant Solicitor 
Bureau of the Census 

Director 

Assistant Director^ 
Coast and Geodetic Survey 

Commissioned Officers 

Superintendent 

^ For decennial census period only, 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 37 

Department of Commerce — Continued 
Steamboat-Inspection Service 
Supervising Inspector General 
Supervising Inspectors 
Bureau of Fisheries 
Commissioner 
Deputy Commissioner 
Bureau of Navigation 

Commissioner 
Bureau of Standards 

Director 
Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce 
Director 

Assistant Directors 
Department of Labor 
Secretary- 
Solicitor 
Bureau of Immigration 
Commissioner-General 
Local Commissioners 
Bureau of Naturalization 

Commissioner 
Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Commissioner 
Children's Bureau 
Chief 
Government Printing Office 

Public Printer 
Interstate Commerce Commission 
Commissioners 

Chief Inspector of Locomotive Boilers 
Assistant Chief Inspector of Locomotive Boilers 
Civil Service Commission 
Commissioners 
Chief Examiner 
Federal Reserve Board 

Members 
Federal Trade Commission 

Commissioners 
United States Shipping Board 

Commissioners 
Tariff Commission 

Commissioners 
United States Employees' Compensation Commission 

Commissioners 
Federal Board for Vocational Education 
Commissioners 



38 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Board of Mediation and Conciliation ^ 
Commissioner 
Assistant Commissioner 

Power of Congress to Control the Discretion of the Presi- 
dent in Respect to Appointments. — To what extent may 
Congress control the discretion of the President in his selection 
of persons for nomination? Is his discretion absolute, or may 
Congress prescribe rules to control it — rules providing, for 
example, for examinations or for open competition? 

As to those officers whose nomination is specifically en- 
trusted to the President by the Constitution — "ambassadors, 
other public ministers, and consuls" and, inferentially, the 
"heads of departments" — it seems clear that Congress has no 
constitutional power to control the action of the President in 
any way. As to other presidential appointments it is arguable 
that the President's power exists only at the pleasure of Con- 
gress, which could, if it chose, prescribe appointment by one 
of the other methods permitted by the Constitution; and that 
presidential nomination to these positions is as much subject 
to the control of Congress, as to methods of selection, as is a 
power of appointment derived wholly from statute. 

The question has never arisen judicially and while it is an 
interesting one for the constitutional lawyer, it has little prac- 
tical importance. Historically the President has always taken 
the lead in action looking to the establishment of some sys- 
tem of selection of appointees whom he is required to nomi- 
nate. It is not likely that Congress will at any time be found 
forcing upon the Executive a system of selection, the effect 
of which is to weaken the hold of the political machine upon 
the appointing power. Only in response to a strong and in- 
sistent demand from the President will Congress give either 
funds or statutory recognition to any proposal that a ma- 
chinery and procedure of selection be substituted for "sena- 
torial courtesy." With the Executive seeking such legislation, 
it will be effective even if only permissive in its terms, 

^ Has ceased to function owing to lack of appropriation, but has not 
been formally abolished. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 39 

In practice Congress has long prescribed, in great detail, 
the method to be followed in making nominations for appoint- 
ment in the military and naval services, and the constitution- 
ality of such provisions has never been questioned. In the 
civil service, however, Congress has to date in only two cases 
those of the commissioned officers of the Public Health Ser- 
vice and the Coast and Geodetic Survey — regulated, by law, the 
selection of nominees to "presidential" positions. Aside from 
these the President's discretion is wholly uncontrolled by law. 

The Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey are in many respects two of the most interesting of the 
civil services of the government because of the similarity of 
their system of rank and pay to that of the military and naval 
services. In the organization of these services Congress, fol- 
lowing the analogy of the military and naval services, requires 
that every commissioned officer shall be appointed by the 
President with the consent of the Senate. In no other branch 
of the civil service of the government is there a similar pro- 
vision. Conjointly with this unique method of appointment, 
however. Congress has provided^ that no person shall be 
appointed as a medical officer of the Public Health Service 
"until after passing a satisfactory examination in the several 
branches of medicine, surgery, and hygiene before a board of 
medical officers of the said service." In the case of the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey " the law provides that "no person shall 
be appointed aid . . . until after passing a satisfactory mental 
and physical examination conducted in accordance with regu- 
lations prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce.^ 

^Act of January 4, 188^, 25 Stat, 639. 

="40 Stat. 88. 

'The law thus regulating the methods of selection to be applied to the 
Public Health Service is of peculiar interest because the act provides also 
"that original appointments in the service shall only be made to the rank 
of assistant surgeon," thus establishing the service on a completely closed 
basis in the same vi^ay that the military and naval services are organized. 
The act governing appointments in the Coast and Geodetic Survey does 
not explicitly say that original appointment shall be to the lowest grade, 
but it accomplishes this by implication by providing that "no person . . . 
shall be promoted from aid to junior hydrographic and geodetic engineer" 
or to the next higher grade without passing a mental and physical exam- 
ination conducted in accordance with regulations to be prescribed by the 
Secretary of Commerce. 



40 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

These statutes do not provide for an open competitive ex- 
amination for entrance to the service. It leaves with the 
President complete power to select whom he will for nomina- 
tion to the Senate subject only to the requirement that the 
persons so nominated shall first pass an examination. What 
is provided is, therefore, a "non-competitive" or "pass' exam- 
ination." The unquestioning acceptance of this system by 
the Executive does not prove that it would be equally valid 
constitutionally for Congress to prescribe for presidential 
positions a system of open competitive examination with com- 
pulsory nomination of those graded highest. 

Whatever may be the power of Congress to regulate the 
method by which nominees to the Senate are selected by the 
President, the plenary right of the President himself to pre- 
scribe any formal system of selection he may desire cannot 
be questioned. In fact, up to the present time, he has estab- 
lished both a system of non-competitive examination — that for 
consuls and for the lower officers of the diplomatic service — 
and a^ open competitive system — that for filling certain classes 
of vacancies in presidential postmasterships. Both of these 
systems of selection will be discussed in later chapters. 
Non-Presidential Positions. — Passing now to the non- 
presidential positions, embracing the remainder of the execu- 
tive civil service, we shall consider first the legal provisions 
regarding selection and then those regarding tenure and re- 
moval, though both are in some cases contained in the same act. 

Since power of appointment vested in an agency other than 
the President and Senate is derived wholly from statute, the 
authority of Congress to prescribe the method of selection to 
be employed in the exercise of that power is complete. This 
is as true of those positions whose incumbents are regarded 
as "officers" as of those filled by "employees" or "agents." 
In theory a distinction indeed might be drawn; since as to 
"officers" Congress is not empowered by the Constitution to 
create the appointing power but merely to select one of the 
three possible classes of appointing officers — the President, 
the courts of law, and the heads of departments — named by 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 41 

the Constitution. In practice, this distinction has been neg- 
lected; and for all non-presidential positions, comprising vir- 
tually the whole of the technical, the clerical, and the me- 
chanical and labor forces of the government. Congress has 
complete control over the machinery of selection.^ 

Not until 1853, however, did Congress make any use 
whatever of this plenary control over methods of selection 
for non-presidential positions; and not until 1883, thirty years 
later, did it make any really effective use of it. The nature 
of its action during that period, and subsequently, will now 
be reviewed. 

Early Legislation Regarding Methods of Selection. — In 
1853 and 1855 Congress followed the example of England 
by requiring that the clerks in the departments at Wash- 
ington should pass examinations prior to appointment in 
the service. The act, as incorporated in the Revised 
Statutes, reads as follows : 

Sec. 163. The clerks in the Departments shall be arranged 
in four classes, distinguished as the first, second, third, and 
fourth classes. 

Sec, 164. No clerk shall be appointed in any Department 
in either of the four classes above designated, until he has 
been examined and found qualified by a board of three exam- 
iners, to consist of the chief of the Bureau or office into which 
such clerk is to be appointed and two other clerks to be se- 
lected by the head of the Department. 

This law was extensively applied for some years, but its 
enforcement gradually weakened. The Civil Service Commis- 
sion in its first report commented on the system developed 
under this law, as follows : 

The essential vices of the pass-examination system were 
these : 

I. The examinations were not open to all persons appar- 
ently qualified, nor even to all such persons belonging to the 

^ "The head of a department has no constitutional prerogative of 
appointment to offices independently of the legislation of Congress, and by 
such legislation he must be governed, not only in making appointments, 
but in all that is incident thereto." (U. S. v. Perkins, January 25, 1886, 116 
U. S. 483.) 



42 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

dominant party, but rather to such of the favorites of the 
dominant faction of that party as members of Congress and 
great pohticians recommended. 

Though the more disinterested and patriotic of those who 
monopoHzed patronage brought large numbers into the serv- 
ice who were both capable and worthy, the tendency was 
strong in favor of the office-begging and office-earning classes. 

2. The tenure of the members of the examining boards 
was too precarious for strong resistance to influence and solici- 
tation, but it should be said to their credit that they sometimes 
defeated the great officers and politicians who tried to push 
thejr favorites past the examinations. 

3. These pass examinations denied the Government a 
choice from among the most meritorious applicants. There 
was no competition or comparison of merits between them, 
but only the chance of taking a person examined separately, 
on peril of offending his backers by refusing him. 

In 1856 Congress also provided that: 

the President is authorized ... to provide for the appoint- 
ment of vice-consuls, vice-commercial agents, deputy consuls, 
and consular agents in such manner and under such regula- 
tions as he shall deem proper. . . . No vice-consul, vice- 
commercial agent, deputy consul, or consular agent shall be 
appointed otherwise than under such regulations as have been 
or may be prescribed by the President.^ 

This statute is noteworthy because it is the first in the whole 
history of legislation on this subject in which the power is 
given to the President to prescribe regulations for selection. 
No formal system of selection, however, was set up by the 
President under the authority thus conferred. 

Perhaps the only other provision regarding methods of 
selection applicable to particular classes of personnel was that 
enacted in 1871 relative to the method of selection of local 
inspectors of hulls and of boilers in the Steamboat Inspection 
Service. This statute provided that: 

Whenever any vacancy occurs in any local board of in- 
spectors, or whenever local inspectors are to be appointed for 

^Act of August 18, 1856, II Stat. 57. Incorporated in Revised Stat- 
utes, Sec. 1695. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 43 

a new district, the supervising inspectors shall notify the col- 
lector or other chief officers of the customs for the district, 
and the judge of the district court for the district in which such 
appointment is to be made, who, together with the supervising 
inspector, shall meet together as a board of designators, and 
fill the vacant or new inspectorship. Such board, or the major 
part thereof, when designating an inspector of hulls, shall se- 
lect a person of good character and suitable qualifications and 
attainments to perform the services required of inspectors of 
hulls, and who, from his practical knowledge of ship-building 
and navigation and the uses of steam in navigation, is fully 
competent to make a reliable estimate of the strength, sea- 
worthiness, and other qualities of the hulls of steam-vessels 
and their equipment, deemed essential to safety of life in their 
navigation ; and when designating an inspector of boilers, shall 
select a person of good character and suitable qualifications and 
attainments to perform the services required of inspectors of 
boilers, who, from his knowledge and experience of the duties 
of an engineer employed in navigating vessels by steam, and 
also of the construction and use of boilers, and machinery, 
and appurtenances therewith connected, is able to form 
a reliable opinion of the strength, form, workmanship, and 
suitableness of boilers and machinery to be employed without 
hazard to life, from imperfection in the materials, workman- 
ship, or arrangement of any part of such apparatus for steam- 
ing.i 

It will be seen that these provisions do not provide for any 
system of selection but merely lay an injunction upon the au- 
thorities charged with selection. This was followed in 1872 
by an act providing that laborers "shall be employed in the 
several navy yards by the proper officers in charge with ref- 
erence to skill and efficiency and without regard to other con- 
siderations," ^ which, of course, falls in the same class as 
being hortatory rather than restrictive. 

The Law of 1871. — Not until 1871 did Congress make any 
comprehensive attempt to exercise control over the selection 

*Act of February 28, 1871, 16 Stat. z^S- Incorporated in Sec. 4415, 
Revised Statutes. This whole section has been amended by vesting the 
power of selection in the Secretary of Commerce. 

^ Act of May 23, 1872, 17 Stat. 146. Incorporated in Sec. 1544, Revised 
Statutes. 



44 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of the civil personnel. In that year, as the result of persistent 
agitation for civil service reform by a few devoted men in 
Congress, supported by President Grant, Congress in 1871 en- 
acted the first law establishing a general system of selection. 
This authorized the President- 

to prescribe such regulations for the admission of persons into 
the civil service of the United States as may best promote the 
efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each candidate in 
respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for 
the branch of the service into which he seeks to enter ; and for 
this purpose he may employ suitable persons to conduct such 
inquiries, and may prescribe their duties, and establish regula- 
tions for the conduct of persons who may receive appoint- 
ments in the civil service.^ 

The act thus in terms applies to all positions in the civil service 
including those to which appointment is by the President with 
the consent of the Senate; but since the President, without 
statutory authority, has complete power over the methods of 
selection for such positions, the act may be regarded as ma- 
terial only with respect to non-presidential positions. 

Wide as was the blanket authority conferred by the act, 
it lacked the reenforcement of adequate funds and the moral 
support of Congress, and, therefore, proved ineffectual; all 
effort further to employ it was abandoned by President Grant 
in 1873. Nevertheless, it is far more sweeping in respect to 
the authority conferred upon the President than is the civil 
service law of 1883 ; and, as will shortly appear, it remains to 
this day a most useful and vital part of the federal personnel 
law. 

The Civil Service Act of 1883. — The failure of the experi- 
ment of 1 87 1 led to the enactment in 1883 of what was re- 
garded as a more effective measure.^ This act, known as the 
civil service act and unamended to this day, constitutes the 
legal basis on which the present machinery for the selection of 
the personnel for the non-presidential positions (other than 
laborers) chiefly rests. 

^Act of March 3, 1871, 16 Stat. 514; Revised Statutes, Sec. 1753. 
* Act of January 16, 1883, 22 Stat. 403. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 45 

The substantive provisions of this act fall into two dis- 
tinct groups: (i) those aimed at poHtical contributions by 
employees and the coercion of employees for political pur- 
poses; and (2) those relating to the method of selection of 
employees for appointment and promotion. The first group 
has no direct bearing on the immediate subject and need not be 
further considered at this point. Reference is almost invari- 
ably to the second group when the civil service law is men- 
tioned; but, because of the presence of the other group of 
provisions in the act, it is necessary for precision to speak not 
of the act itself but of the provisions of the act relating to 
selection. The precise terms of those provisions are set forth 
in due course in this section. Broadly speaking, they aim 
chiefly at establishing a system under which the classes of 
employees to whom the provisions apply will be selected by open 
competitive examination. 

The provisions of the act relating to methods of selection 
are an extreme example of "inartificial" draftsmanship; and 
an exact understanding of their tenor can be gained only from 
a close and careful study of the act itself. Their effect, per- 
haps, may be most clearly stated here by comparing them with 
the act of 1871, above set forth. 

The primary difference between the act of 1871 and that 
of 1883 is in respect to the classes of employees affected. The 
act of 1 871 applies to "the civil service of the United States." 
This inclusive term would seem on its face to embrace even 
the officers and employees of Congress, and the clerks of the 
United States courts, who are commonly regarded as em- 
ployees of the judicial department. However this may be, 
and that phase of the question is at best academic, the term 
certainly extends to all officers and employees in the executive 
branch of the government without exception. 

The provisions of the civil service act relating to selection 
on the other hand, in addition to explicitly excluding "any 
officer not in the executive branch of the government" exclude 
from their operation: first, "any person employed merely as 
a laborer or workman"; and second, "any person who has 



46 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

been nominated for confirmation by the Senate." ^ The lat- 
ter class may indeed be brought under the operation of the 
law "by direction of the Senate" ; but the failure of the Sen- 
ate to give such direction in a single instance during the thirty- 
seven years of the act's history has rendered this proviso vir- 
tually obsolete. 

While the provisions of the civil service law relating to 
the methods of selection thus embrace, potentially, all persons 
in the executive civil service other than "presidential" ap- 
pointees and laborers, these provisions do not apply in terms 
to all the employees within its scope, but only to such as are 
"classified" under the act. The principle of "open, competi- 
tive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants" (Sec. 
2, Second, First) is to be applied only to applicants "for the 
public service now classified or to be classified hereunder." 
Similarly, the principle of "selection according to grade from 
among those graded highest" is to be applied only to "the of- 
fices, places, and employments so arranged or to be arranged 
in classes." (Section 2, Second, Second.) Finally, the defi- 
nite prohibition in the act against appointment (or promotion) 
without either examination or specific exemption from exam- 
ination (Sec. 7) applies only to "either of the said classes now 
existing, or that may be arranged hereunder pursuant to said 
rules." From these provisions it thus seems clear that it was 
the intention of the framers of the act that the principles of 
competition and examination declared by the act should be 
applied only to such positions as may be "classified," that is, 
"arranged in classes." 

The motive for thus uniting these two totally distinct pro- 
cedures is difficult to understand. It is perfectly possible to 
arrange positions in classes without subjecting them to com- 
petitive examination. Similarly it is equally possible to apply 
the method of competitive selection to positions not classified, 

* It might seem that this language applies only to persons who, at the 
time of the passage of the act. held positions to which they had been 
appointed after confirmation by the Senate. But the uniform interpreta- 
tion of the clause has been to exclude from the operation of the act all 
positions to which appointment is made upon the advice and consent of 
the Senate. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 47 

and indeed to special positions not readily susceptible of ar- 
rangement in classes. In actual operation the broadest pos- 
sible connotation has been given to the term "classified," and 
as a result it has been customary for years to include positions 
within the scope of the competitive system even though they 
may not be technically "arranged in classes." In fact, a large 
proportion of the positions so embraced have never been "ar- 
ranged in classes" at all; so that the term "classified" has come 
to mean, in the parlance of the federal personnel system, not 
"arranged in classes" at all, but simply brought within the 
scope of the competitive examination system,^ or, more cor- 
rectly, within the operation of the civil service rules regarding 
selection. 

The provisions made in the act for "classification" are 
equally confused and ill-considered. At the time of the pas- 
sage of the act but one portion of the public service was "now 
classified." This embraced the clerical positions in the execu- 
tive departments at Washington to which a compensation of 
either $1,200, $1,400,. $1,600, or $1,800 attached. By an act 
of 1853, already referred to, these positions had been arranged 
in four "classes" corresponding to the several salary rates men- 
tioned. In addition, the civil service act (Sec. 6) now re- 
quired the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster Gen- 
eral, respectively, to "arrange in classes," in conformity as 
nearly as possible to the statutory classification of the depart- 
mental clerks just referred to, "the several clerks and persons 
employed by the collector, naval officer, surveyor, and ap- 
praisers, or either of them, or being in the public service, at 
their respective offices in each customs district where the whole 

^At one point the civil service law itself seems to contemplate jnst 
such a meaning of the term "classified." The concluding sentence of Sec- 
tion 6 of the act authorizes the heads of departments from time to time 
to "revise any then existing classification or arrangement" and "for the 
purposes of the examination herein provided for" to include in such classi- 
fication employees "not before classified for examination." This is, how- 
ever, the only place in the act at which the term "classification" is used as 
identical with the designation of a position as one to be filled by examina- 
tion ; and indeed in the next section the two things are apparently regarded 
as quite distinct, it being provided that no person who has been nominated 
for confirmation by the Senate shall be required "to be classified or to pass 
an examination." 



48 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

number of said clerks and persons shall be altogether as many 
as fifty" ; and "the several clerks and persons employed, or in 
the public service, at each post office, or under any postmaster 
of the United States, where the whole number of said clerks 
and persons shall together amount to as many as fifty." 
Finally, the act provided, that from time to time each depart- 
ment head, and each "head of an office" (that is, of an inde- 
pendent establishment) "shall, on the direction of the Presi- 
dent, and for facilitating the execution of this act, respectively 
revise any then existing classification or arrangement of those 
in their respective departments and offices, and shall, for the 
purposes of the examination herein provided for, include in 
one or more of such classes, so far as practicable, subordinate 
places, clerks, and officers in the public service pertaining to 
their respective departments not before classified for exam- 
ination." 

It is in this last provision that the authority for extending 
the competitive system beyond the narrow limits prescribed 
by the two preceding provisions is found ; and it is, therefore, 
upon this provision of the civil service law and upon the act 
of 1 87 1 that the application of the system to far the greater 
proportion of the employees now embraced in it must rest. 

Like the act of 1871, the civil service act itself contains 
no mandatory prescription of methods of selection to be em- 
ployed; like the act of 1871, it leaves complete discretion in 
this respect in the hands of the President, who is empowered 
to promulgate "rules for carrying this act into effect." But 
unlike the act of 1871, it sets forth in general terms certain 
"fundamental provisions" which such rules shall contain. As 
even these provisions are to be embodied in the rules, how- 
ever, only "as nearly as the conditions of good administra- 
tion will warrant" and as the rules are in no wise limited to 
these provisions,* it is hardly too much to say that the nature 
of the power of regulation conferred on the President by the 
civil service act is virtually as unqualified as is that conferred 

* The act states that the provisions mentioned shall be declared "among 
other things." 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 49 

by the act of 1871. This is, however, a somewhat legaHstic 
view. The moral obHgation imposed on the President actually 
to apply the "fundamental provisions" wherever practicable 
is, of course, most weighty. Nevertheless, it must be clearly 
kept in mind that the civil service law requires no single speci- 
fied position to be filled by competitive examination, or indeed 
even by non-competitive examination. Of themselves, there- 
fore, the substantive provisions of the civil service law relating 
to selection are without effect. So far as they have vitality, 
they draw it from the provisions of the civil service rules pro- 
mulgated by the President. Hence it is in conjunction with 
those rules that these substantive provisions can best be ex- 
amined. 

Finally, it will be recalled that the act of 1871 authorized 
the President to "employ suitable persons to conduct" the in- 
quiries regarding the fitness of candidates authorized by the 
act; and to prescribe the duties of such persons. The civil 
service act on the other hand expressly provides for a com- 
mission of three members, "not more than two of whom shall 
be members of the same political party," and who "should 
hold no other official place under the United States." It is 
also provided that the commission may at places where ex- 
aminations are to take place "designate and select a suitable 
number of persons, not less than three, in the official service 
of the United States ... to be members of boards of ex- 
aminers." The duties of the commission, moreover, are de- 
tailed with much greater fullness than was attempted in the 
act of 1 87 1. It is to "aid the President as he may request in 
preparing" the rules already referred to, and "subject to the 
rules that may be made by the President," it is to "make regu- 
lations for and have control of," the examinations which may 
be provided for by the rules, and "shall supervise and pre- 
serve the records of the same." It may, moreover, investi- 
gate and report "upon all matters touching the enforcement 
and effects of said rules and regulations." Finally, the author- 
ity of the commission is strengthened by a provision requiring 
officers to give it the use of public buildings for holding ex- 



50 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

aminations, and by a provision making unlawful any fraud 
or corruption with intent to defeat the purpose of the act. 

Although the civil service act has never been amended, sev- 
eral supplemental statutes have been enacted. None of them 
is of major significance except those exempting certain groups 
of employees from the operation of the act, which are reviewed 
in a subsequent section of this chapter. They bear only on 
details of the operation of the system of competitive selection 
and will be mentioned in connection with the detailed account 
of that system in a subsequent chapter. 

Both Presidential and labor positions, and indeed those 
excluded from the operation of the civil service law by spe- 
cial statute (to which attention will be called in a subsequent 
section of the present chapter), as has been pointed out, are 
subject, by the act of 1871, to any system of selection, in- 
cluding examination, which the President may order. The 
elimination of these classes of personnel from the operation 
of the civil service law may be thought for practical purposes 
immaterial. Such is not the case, however. Whatever may 
be the President's legal power, the civil service law does what 
the act of 1871 does not — it specifically imposes upon the 
President the moral duty of applying the principle of "open 
competitive examination" and "selection according to grade 
from among those graded highest," as far as the conditions 
of good administration will warrant, and this moral mandate 
has become so firmly fixed as a portion of the political tra- 
dition that the mere inclusion of a position under the civil 
service law, despite the plenary authority granted to the Presi- 
dent to except it from competition as wholly as though it did 
not fall under that law, may be regarded in every case as a vic- 
tory for the merit principle. It may be regarded, therefore, 
as unfortunate for the development of the merit system that 
the civil service law does not apply to presidential and to labor 
employees. Although the legal situation would not be changed 
in any substantial respect by their inclusion at the present time, 
an amendment to secure their inclusion should have the ear- 
nest support of every friend of the merit system. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 51 

Quite aside from its influence on the spread of the merit 
principle, the inclusion of the entire service under one statute 
would simplify administration, as will subsequently appear 
from the discussions of assignments and transfers involving 
a change from an unclassified to a classified status. This 
division of the service into these purely statutory classes on 
a basis which may, and in some cases does, have no relation 
to the method of selection or the needs of the personnel ad- 
ministration, necessarily places an additional artificial difficulty 
in the way of the free movement of personnel within the serv- 
ice.^ 

The civil service act differs from most of the acts which 
have followed it in state and local jurisdictions in one point. 
It vests complete discretion in the application of the competi- 
tive principle of selection and the promulgation of rules in 
the President himself. The Civil Service Commission has no 
powers under this head except those the President confers 
upon it. In most jurisdictions it has been thought necessary 
or desirable to give the Civil Service Commission a large meas- 
ure, if not the whole, of the discretionary power created by 
the act, the theory being that the checking of the discretion of 

^A view contrary to the one here expressed has found support from 
some who have had much experience in connection with the administration 
of the federal civil service law. This view has been stated as follows in a 
letter to the writer : "While there might be some advantages in the 
extension of the civil service law to include laborers, the result of such 
action would undoubtedly prove a distinct disadvantage to the service 
rather than a benefit. At the present time a barrier is set up which 
efifectually prevents departments from assigning a mere laborer or work- 
man to a classified position except incidentally upon the approval of the 
Commission. One evil in the assignment of unclassified laborers to classi- 
fied duty arises in the claim for promotion to classified positions by reasons 
of experience and capability acquired in the unclassified position." The 
validity of this view is open to serious question. It hardly can be said 
correctly that the present distinction between unclassified and classified 
positions erects a barrier "which effectually prevents departments from 
assigning a mere laborer or a workman to a classified position." It is true 
that the rules at the present time prohibit such an assignment; but they 
prevent it only in so far as the Commission is able to secure or enforce 
compliance with its rules. Even though the distinction between unclassified 
and classified positions were abolished and the grade of laborer were 
merely to become, as indeed it is in a great many local jurisdictions, a 
sub-class of the general classified service, it would still be open to the 
Commission to prohibit the assignment of a mere laborer or workman to a 
position of higher duty or compensation ; but the enforcement of such rule 
would depend upon the resources at the disposal of the Commission. 



52 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the executive was the primary purpose of the act, and that 
such a check could effectively be exercised only by a body 
largely independent of the executive. The federal personnel 
system, however, is so vast and the President so far removed 
from the subordinate personnel that a far greater and more 
rapid development of restrictive control has ensued in the 
federal service under Presidential authority than has been ob- 
tained in small jurisdictions with an independent civil service 
commission. The completeness of the power vested in the 
President has resulted here and there in a less thoroughgoing 
and consistent application of merit principles than would have 
been likely had the power been vested in the Civil Service Com- 
mission itself, even though that body remained entirely de- 
pendent on the President in respect to appointment and re- 
moval. Future progress should probably be in this direction; 
but the matter should be considered in its relation to the gen- 
eral question of giving membership on the commission a more 
representative character and a more attractive status, points 
discussed in a subsequent chapter. 

The opposite extreme to the present arrangement would 
be not only to give the Civil Service Commission all the dis- 
cretionary and regulatory power now possessed by the Presi- 
dent, but to have it appointed independently of him. Such 
an arrangement would represent a fundamental departure from 
the tradition of the national government. It would entail a 
basic division of responsibility for the personnel system, and 
consequently for the whole administrative system, of the gov- 
ernment. It is not believed that experience or present con- 
ditions furnish any warrant for so radical a change.^ 

The civil service act expressly prohibits the appointment 
of any "oflicer or clerk contrary to its terms," yet no power 
is vested in the Civil Service Commission itself to enforce this 
requirement. In a number of jurisdictions the civil service 

^ The two proposals here discussed are to be sharply distinguished from 
that which would leave the President's power of regulation unimpaired, but 
would make the Civil Service Commission, in its administration of the 
law and rules, independent of the President (through appointment by an 
independent authority such as the Supreme Court). 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 53 

law provides that no payment shall be made upon any payroll 
until the civil service commission has certified that all per- 
sons whose names appear thereon have been appointed in pur- 
suance of law. In the absence of any provision of this char- 
acter in the federal civil service law, the Commission, in 1897, 
requested the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a system 
of personnel audit in the office of the Comptroller of the Treas- 
ury.^ The Secretary of the Treasury declined to do this and 
the Commission accordingly sent to the Comptroller of the 
Treasury lists of the names of persons known by it to be 
holding office or employment in violation of the civil service 
act. The Comptroller, however, declined to interfere, and on 
April I, 1899, render&d an opinion addressed to a United 
States Marshal who admitted that he had appointed an office 
deputy without reference to the lists furnished by the Civil 
Service Commission, even though the position of office deputy 
had been placed by the President in the classified service and 
the civil service rules promulgated by the President required 
that persons in the. classified service, unless specifically ex- 
empted, should be appointed from_ lists furnished by the Civil 
Service Commission as a result of open competitive examina- 
tion. The decision of the Comptroller ^ held, to quote the 
syllabus, that "a person employed . . . without having been 
certified by the Civil Service Commission is eligible to employ- 
ment, although employed in violation of law." The theory ad- 
vanced is that, if the marshal had violated an executive order 
and no action had been taken by his superior, the Attorney 

^ Such a system, if established, would have differed from the systems 
employed in local jurisdictions under a provision of the type just cited, 
under which payment is withheld until the certification of the Civil Service 
Commission is obtained. It is not the practice of the federal government 
to make any central audit of vouchers before disbursing, the practice being, 
on the contrary, for the several departmental disbursing officers to make 
all disbursements, including payroll disbursements, upon their own responsi- 
bility, being held liable for any illegal payments which may be subse- 
quently discovered upon examination by the auditors acting under the 
direction of the Comptroller of the Treasury. The request of the Com- 
mission, had it been granted, would have involved an examination of all 
payrolls by the auditors to ascertain whether any person appearing on such 
payrolls held his position in violation of the civil service law or rules. 

^Decisions of the Comptroller of the Treasury, vol. 5 (1899), p. 649. 



54 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

General, and similarly no action had been taken against the 
Attorney General by the President, the action of the marshal 
might be regarded as having had the approval of the President, 
and the President as having impliedly waived the provisions of 
his own general order in the specific case. It need hardly be 
said that this decision clearly runs counter to the well-estab- 
lished doctrine which gives to executive orders made in pursu- 
ance of law the force of law. However, taking the position he 
did, the Comptroller decided that he "would not gO' behind the 
certificate of the appointing power and ascertain whether the 
civil service rules and regulations have been complied with in 
the employment of persons in the classified civil service." The 
Civil Service Commission appears to have made no further 
attempt to secure action in this direction ^ and the Comp- 
troller's decision represents the practice down to this day. 

Although the failure to confer upon the Commission any 
power to enforce the law was undoubtedly a serious defect in 
the framing of the act, and undoubtedly prevented as rapid 
and consistent an observance of the law in its early days as 
might otherwise have been had, it can hardly be said that at 
the present time this absence of legal power is material. Since 
the instance above cited took place, a tradition has developed 
throughout the service which insures the observance of the 
law and the regulations substantially as effectively and, of 
course, infinitely more economically than would be secured by 
an elaborate and thoroughgoing audit of payrolls by the Civil 
Service Commission. It is not believed that at the present 
time the letter of the civil service rules is in any appreciable 
degree willfully violated. 

The Civil Service Rules and Orders. — The civil service 
rules now in force were promulgated by the President on 
April 15, 1903. Since then they have been amended textually 

^ Indeed the Commission not only made no attempt to secure legislative 
relief but the whole subject is not mentioned in its annual reports. For 
the statements of fact above made reliance has been placed principally on 
the report of the investigating committee of the National Civil Service 
Reform League on the Condition of the Civil Service under the Present 
National Administration, made to the annual meeting of that body in 1900 
(See Proceedings, 1900, p. 23 ff-)- 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 55 

a number of times. In addition, their tenor on several points 
has been altered by executive orders issued by the President, 

The rules recite that they are promulgated by the Presi- 
dent *'in the exercise of power conferred by the Constitution, 
by Section 1753, Revised Statutes [hereinbefore referred to 
as the act of 1871] and the act of January 16, 1883 [the civil 
service law]." The act of 187 1, it will be recalled, author- 
ized the President not merely to "prescribe regulations for the 
admission of persons into the civil service of the United 
States," but to "establish regulations for the conduct of per- 
sons who may receive appointments in the civil service." 
Again the civil service act, as already pointed out, contains 
provisions bearing on the matter of political contributions by 
employees, and the coercion of employees for political pur- 
poses, and confers upon the President the blanket power to 
promulgate "suitable rules for carrying this act into effect." 

Finally the civil service act itself, while it enumerates cer- 
tain specific provisions which the rules shall embody, "so 
far as the conditions of good administration warrant," it per- 
mits the President, by implication, to make rules on any other 
phase of personnel administration.^ 

The rules consequently contain provisions bearing on al- 
most all phases of personnel administration. All these pro- 
visions will be adverted to in their proper place. Here we 
are concerned only with those rules which bear directly on 
the matter of the application of formal systems of selection to 
that portion of the service to which the civil service act re- 
lates.^ 

^ The act provides that "among other things" the President shall pro- 
mulgate rules as set forth in the statute. As was said by Attorney General 
Knox (23 Op. Atty. Gen., 595, 597, December 2, 1901) : "Shortof a pur- 
pose to break down this law or impose some arbitrary and unfair require- 
ment which is inconsistent with the spirit of law in general (a supposition 
too absurd to be indulged), it is not too much to say that the determina- 
tion of the contents of these rules rests almost wholly with the President 
himself." 

* Since the rules as already indicated also cite the Constitution and the 
act of 1871 as sources of the authority of the President, it would have been 
perfectly proper for the President to incorporate in those rules the various 
orders setting up systems of selection for classes of personnel not within 
the provisions of the civil service act relating to selection, but this has in 



56 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The "Classified" Service. — It will be recalled that the 
provisions of the civil service act relating to selection apply 
only to positions "classified" under the act. This does not 
mean that all positions "classified" must be filled by open com- 
petitive examination. On the contrary, the provision of the 
act which lays down the principle of open competitive exam- 
ination merely provides that the President shall promulgate 
a rule which shall "provide and declare . . . for open com- 
petitive examinations" for positions "classified," "so far as 
the conditions of good administration will warrant." The 
same intention is manifested in the enforcing clause of the 
act (Sec. 7) which prohibits the employment of any person 
in a "classified" position "until he has passed an examination, 
or is shown to be specially exempted from such examination 
in conformity herewith." Indeed this clause, the only man- 
datory clause in the entire act relating to selection, does not 
even require that the examination passed by those not "spe- 
cially exempted" shall be open or competitive. It is thus clear 
that under the act a position may be a "classified" one and yet 
need not be filled by competitive examination, or by any form 
of examination. 

In the earlier rules, however, the process of "classifica- 
tion" was conceived of as synonymous with the application 
of the principle of competitive examination; and those posi- 
tions to which this method was not applied were regarded by 
the rules as "not yet classified." But since the Revision of 
1896, the rules have followed the original intent of the civil 
service law and they now prescribe (Rule II) that "the clas- 
sified service shall include all officers and employees in the 
executive civil service of the United States, heretofore or 
hereafter appointed or employed, in positions now existing 
or hereafter to be created, of whatever function or designa- 
tion, whether compensated by a fixed salary or otherwise, ex- 
cept persons employed merely as laborers, and persons whose 

no case been done. So far as methods of selection are concerned the 
rules, like the civil service act, exclude from their application presiden- 
tial appointees and laborers. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 57 

appointments are subject to confirmation by the Senate" — 
that is, all officers and employees to whom the principles of 
selection declared by the civil service act may, under that act, 
be applied,^ the rules making specific designation of those 
positions to which competitive selection is not to be applied.^ 
Under the rules now in force all "classified" positions, as 
thus defined, are to be filled by open competitive examination 
unless specifically excepted therefrom. These exceptions take 
either of two forms. The rules themselves make provisions 
for "non-competitive" and for "excepted" positions, and con- 
tain schedules of the positions included under each head. Ad- 
ditional exceptions, usually of a less permanent nature, are 
created by special executive order, without textual amend- 
ment of the rules or accompanying schedules. The precise 
nature and extent of each of these classes of exceptions from 
competitive selection warrants examination. 
Non-Competitive Positions. — Non-competitive appoint- 
ments are provided for in Rule III, Section 2, which reads : 
"Where in its opinion the conditions of good administration 
warrant, the commission may give non-competitive examina- 
tions to test fitness for . . . appointment to the positions 
named in Schedule B of these rules." While discretion is 
thus accorded the Commission to use either competitive or 
non-competitive examinations for these positions, it has fol- 

^ Indeed this definition is so broadly phrased that in strictness it would 
include even those positions which are by special statute specifically ex- 
cluded from the operation of that civil service law. It is not intended, 
of course, to include those positions. 

" The "classified" positions to which competitive selection is applied are 
distinguished in the rules from the "classified" positions not filled by com- 
petition by the term "classified competitive" positions. Since, however, 
those classified positions which are not filled by competitive examination 
are not clearly distinguished in the popular mind from positions not classic 
fied, there is a natural tendency to restrict the application of the term 
"classified" service, as it was restricted in the earlier rules, to competitive 
positions, even though the rules, when i-eferring only to those positions, 
speak always of the "classified competitive service." So general has this 
popular usage of the term "classified service" become that it has now 
received legal recognition. By act of August 24, 1912 {2>7 Stat. L. 555), 
Congress provided certain safeguards against improper removal from the 
"classified civil service." In an opinion rendered shortly after (30 Op. 
Atty.-Gen., 181), the Attorney General declared that the term "was used 
in the more popular sense of the competitive service, and therefore should 
not be held to include excepted positions." 



58 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

lowed consistently the practice of using non-competitive ex- 
aminations only. The incumbents of these positions are se- 
lected, therefore, by the appointing officer, subject only to their 
successfully meeting a test imposed by the Civil Service Com- 
mission, which the rules provide "shall consist of the same 
tests of fitness as those applied to other persons seeking ap- 
pointment through competitive examination," a requirement 
obviously of no importance since competitive examination for 
these positions is not given. 

In any sound system of personnel administration positions 
will be found which cannot be filled to the best advantage by 
open competition. Designation by the appointing officer of 
a particular individual for appointn;ient subject to the passing 
of a particular test by the Civil Service Commission is in such 
cases clearly a desirable procedure. 

The positions now filled by this method, under the exist- 
ing provisions of the civil service rules, are not numerous. 
Some of them fall clearly within the particular provinces of 
a non-competitive method. Thus, it is provided that certain 
positions in the Indian service ^ and in the Office of Indian 
Affairs ^ may be filled non-competitively when filled by In- 
dians; that any competitive position in an Indian school may 
be filled non-competitively when filled by the wife of a com- 
petitive employee at that school;^ and that any competitive 
position at a United States penitentiary may be so filled when 
filled by a paroled prisoner.* 

Again there are found certain positions so undesirable 
either by reason of low compensation or remote location, or 
of such infrequent occurrence, that open competitive examina- 
tion would be futile. The service in these cases usually con- 
siders itself fortunate if it can find a suitable employee to 

^ Superintendent, teacher, manual training teacher, ikindergartner, phy- 
sician, matron, clerk, seamstress, farmer, and industrial teacher (Schedule 
B, II). 

^ Junior clerk, messenger, assistant messenger, and messenger boy 
(Schedule B, I, 2). 

' Schedule B, I, 3- 

* The prisoner must be recommended for such employment by the 
officers of the penitentiary in which the employment is proposed, by the 
Beard of Parole, and by the Department of Justice (Schedule B, V, i). 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 59 

accept the position. Here, too, is obviously a proper case 
for the use of the non-competitive method. There would seem 
to be only one instance ^ of such a position in the present 
schedule of non-competitive positions, since such positions are 
usually entirely excepted from examination. 

Several additional classes of positions are found, however, 
for whose inclusion in the non-competitive class there is little 
apparent reason, since in virtually every case positions of equal 
importance and difficulty in other services are filled by open 
competition. These positions are: miners employed at res- 
cue stations or on rescue cars at experimental mines under the 
Bureau of Mines ; " special agents of the Division of Inquiry 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission;^ assistant engineers 
in the Valuation Division of that Commission ; * and various 
classes of employees of the Department of Commerce engaged 
in investigating trade conditions both at home and abroad.^ 

That little, if any, good reason exists for the inclusion 
of these positions in the non-competitive class would seem to 
be indicated by the. proviso attached to the orders including the 
miners in the Bureau of Mines and the special agents of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission under this class "that should 
the Civil Service Commission at any time have reason to be- 
lieve that the privilege so afforded is abused it may revoke 
it." 

The existence of an emergency is another reason which 
may warrant the substitution of the non-competitive for the 
competitive procedure. The application of the competitive 
method necessarily requires an appreciable time. Public an- 
nouncement must be made, usually over the country as a whole, 
and a reasonable time given for the submission of applica- 
tions, and even if no written test is embraced in the exam- 

^ The position referred to is that of discipHnarian in the Indian Schools 
(Schedule B, I, 7). 

' Schedule B, 1, 4. 

' Schedule B, II, i. 

' Schedule B, II, 2. 

^ Trade commissioners, commercial agents, experts, and special agents 
(Schedule B, III, 2) ; and clerks to commercial attaches (Schedule B, 
III, I). 



6o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ination, time must be taken for the conscientious examination 
of all the applications submitted and their comparative grad- 
ing, involving also usually the necessity for correspondence 
with persons familiar with the applicants. Under the most 
favorable circumstances and the most expeditious procedure 
this will consume not less than perhaps two or three weeks, 
and cases arise even in times of peace where so long a delay 
is highly undesirable or even impossible. Consequently, in 
response to war needs the President, on March 25, 191 7, or- 
dered that "when the Civil Service Commission decides that, 
because of a public exigency, there is need of the immediate 
filling of a position for which there is no suitable eligible, 
the Commission may authorize the filling of such position by 
the appointment of a person shown to be qualified by such non- 
competitive test of fitness as the Commission may prescribe." 
This order proved of the highest value during the war. A 
number of persons appointed under it are still in the service, 
having received permanent appointment; but it is, of course, 
purely an emergency procedure, to be resorted to only when 
circumstances make it unavoidable. 

It is difficult to ofifer any judgment as to how real a check 
upon political selection the conduct of non-competitive ex- 
aminations by the Civil Service Commission constitutes. The 
Commission does not publish or compile any figures showing 
the number of such examinations held, the number of entrants, 
and the number of persons declared qualified. 
Positions Excepted by the Rules and Orders. — The ex- 
cepted class, which is provided for in Rule II, Section 3 of 
the Rules is of far greater importance. That rule provides 
that "appointments to the excepted positions named in Sched- 
ule A of these rules may be made without examination or upon 
non-competitive examination; but the proper appointing offi- 
cer may fill an excepted position as competitive positions are 
filled." While this rule thus admits of competitive or non- 
competitive examination being employed in the filling of any 
of the positions in this class, they are in practice filled entirely 
without examination. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 6t 

A large, perhaps the largest, class of positions covered by 
this rule consists of skilled and non-skilled laborers employed 
in the field services. The theory on which exception from 
competition may be justified in these cases is that when work 
is being conducted in the field at remote points, it is essential 
that the officer in charge of such work be given a free hand 
in recruiting whatever skilled labor he may need which may 
be locally available, without the necessity of calling upon the 
Civil Service Commission for the certification of eligibles. 

Another class of exceptions are those which are made on 
the ground of the positions being of a "confidential" charac- 
ter. It is on this theory that the various private secretaries 
to heads of departments and bureaus are excepted from ex- 
amination; and the same argument has been advanced in sup- 
port of the exception, for example, of national bank exam- 
iners. 

Other classes consist of positions where the service required 
is wholly temporary or is of a part-time character, and, there- 
fore, necessarily performed by persons in the immediate vi- 
cinity, or in which the work carried on is financed not chiefly 
by the government but by private organizations or persons, 
or in which the work is carried on in such unusual locations 
that competition would be impracticable, or where the salary 
offered is so low that no competition would be likely to be 
secured. 

Finally mention may be made of positions which have been 
brought under the rule due to dissatisfaction of the appointing 
officers with the results produced by the Commission in at- 
tempting to secure qualified persons by open competitive ex- 
ainination. Sometimes this has resulted after an honest at- 
tempt has been made to fill the positions by the competitive 
method.^ 

No one can read the enumeration of positions thus ex- 
empted from the system of competitive examination as given 

^ For a detailed statement of classified positions excepted from exam- 
ination under Rule II, Section 3, see Appendices to the Annual Reports of 
the Civil Service Commission. 



62 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

in the annual reports of the Civil Service Commission without 
feeling that adequate grounds are in many cases lacking for 
the exemption. Many of the positions so exempted differ 
but slightly, if at all, from positions in the filling of which 
the system of competitive examination is rigidly applied. 
Especially is this true of positions exempted on the ground 
that they are of a confidential character. It is the history 
of all civil service systemis that when competitive methods 
are first applied this exception is applied to large classes 
of positions, but that as it becomes more and more clearly 
demonstrated that positions as "confidential" or even more 
"confidential" than the excepted positions are successfully 
filled by open competition, the field of exceptions is greatly 
narrowed. As the Civil Service Commission said some years 
ago, when it was proposed to except the position of chief 
deputy marshal because of its "confidential character" : 

It is said that the relation of the marshal and his chief 
deputy is one of a confidential character. Until 1904 cash- 
iers in the Customs Service were excepted from examination; 
cashiers in post offices were excepted until 1906. Since these 
positions were made competitive there is no reason to suppose 
that they have not been filled as successfully under the civil 
service rules as any other class of competitive positions. This 
fact is of great value in considering the present question be- 
cause it shows that the civil service rules are successfully ap- 
plied to a class of positions whose duties are very similar to 
those of chief office deputies and which were for many years 
excepted from the operation of the rules because of their con- 
fidential and responsible nature. The objections that the mar- 
shal should be personally acquainted with a chief office deputy 
before his selection and should have confidence in his integ- 
rity, reliability, and efficiency, and that the chief deputy should 
be acquainted with local conditions could be met in many-cases 
by the promotion within the office of suitable persons or by 
transfer from the vast number of competitive employees in 
other parts of the classified service. 

From the records available it is not clear to what extent 
the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission have 
been sought or respected by the several Presidents, in the pro- 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 63 

mulgation of exceptions from competition. In certain in- 
stances it seems clear that the President acted without refer- 
ence to the Commission; and in a few instances, the Commis- 
sion has doubtless been flatly overruled. One's general im- 
pression is, however, that here, as in other matters, the Com- 
mission might have displayed, during recent years, a greater 
measure of aggressiveness in promoting the competitive prin- 
ciple. While occasional references to the undesirability and 
needlessness of a large excepted class are to be found in its 
annual reports, it has at no time taken a strong stand in the 
matter or made any really energetic attempt to secure from 
the President a thoroughgoing revision of the schedule of 
excepted positions and its rigorous restriction to those posi- 
tions for which competitive selection is really impracticable. 

The question arises whether in the legitimate field of ex- 
cepted positions, it is desirable or proper that exceptions 
should be made as now by the President or whether it would 
be better to vest that authority in the hands of the Commis- 
sion itself. From almost every standpoint it would seem de- 
sirable to pursue the" latter course. The exercise of this power 
by the President necessarily renders him more or less subject 
to importunity by cabinet members and other political officers 
and the constantly increasing volume of business which the 
President must transact makes it increasingly unlikely that 
applications by department heads for exceptions will receive 
the careful consideration which, from the standpoint of the 
personnel system, they should. 

It is noteworthy that in some local systems the power of 
excepting positions from competitive requirements is regarded 
as so filled with possibilities of abuse for political purposes 
that not only is the power vested in the Civil Service Com- 
mission rather than in the executive, but even its exercise by 
the Commission is subject to review By higher authority. Thus 
in the case of New York City the exception of positions from 
competition by the local commission must be approved by the 
state commission. The contrast between this and the federal 
practice is, however, but one illustration of the dominant power 



64 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

accorded to the President in the civil service administration 
as opposed to that usually accorded the executive in state and 
local sytsems. 

In this connection, however, one special feature may be 
pointed out. In determining whether a particular position 
should be excepted there is involved, in a measure, an ap- 
praisal of the efficiency of the recruitment methods of the Civil 
Service Commission, the only justification for exception in 
the large being that the position cannot with equal satisfaction 
or expedition be filled by the normal competitive method of 
recruitment. To this extent there is valid ground for ob- 
jection to vesting in the Civil Service Commission the power 
of passing on requests for the exception of positions, since it 
is the adequacy of the commission's own methods which is in 
effect called into question. The experience of local commis- 
sions, however, and the record of the federal commission itself 
in making recommendation for exceptions of this character in 
those cases where it has been asked for recommendation, as 
well as in passing on requests for the appointment of desig- 
nated individuals to positions ordinarily competitive, seem to 
indicate that little is to be feared from a too rigid insistence 
by the Commission on competition in cases where competition 
is not really suitable. 

Positions Excepted by Statute. — From time to time Con- 
gress, by statute, has placed some or all of the employees of 
specific services, who would in the absence of special statute 
fall in the classified service, outside the general power of "clas- 
sification" conferred upon the President by the civil service 
act. 

The exceptions now in effect are employees of the Inter- 
national Joint Commission; deputy collectors of internal reve- 
nue ; deputy marshals ; all employees of the Federal Reserve 
Board and of the Federal Farm Loan Board; commercial at- 
taches and a clerk to each; certain technical and expert em- 
ployees of the Federal Trade Commission, the Shipping 
Board, the Tariff Commission, and the Veterans' Bureau; 
immigration inspectors employed in the enforcement of the 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 65 

contract labor law; and even special technical and clerical 
services needed in the construction of hospitals for the Public 
Health Service/ 

^ The statutes making these exceptions are as follows : 

Deputy Collectors and Deputy Marshals. — . . . That hereafter any 
deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy marshal who may be re- 
quired by law or by authority or direction of the collector of internal 
revenue or the United States marshal to execute a bond to, the collector 
of internal revenue or United States marshal to secure faithful perform- 
ance of official duty may be appointed by the said collector or marshal, 
who may require such bond without regard to the provisions of an act of 
Congress entitled "An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the 
United States," approved January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
three, and amendments thereto, or any rule or regulation made in pursu- 
ance thereof, and the officer requiring said bond shall have power to revoke 
the appointment of any subordinate officer or employee and appoint his 
successor at his discretion without regard to the act, amendments, rules, 
or regulations aforesaid. (38 Stat. 208, act of Oct. 22, 1913.) 

Federal Reserve Board. — . . . All such attorneys, experts, assistants, 
clerks, and other employees shall be appointed without regard to the pro- 
visions of the act of January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-three 
(volume twenty-two. United States Statutes at Large, page four hundred 
and three), and amendments thereto, or any rule or regulation made in 
pursuance thereof : Provided, That nothing herein shall prevent the Presi- 
dent from placing said employees in the classified service. (38 Stat. 262, 
act of Dec. 23, 1913.) 

Commercial Attaches. — For commercial attaches, to be appointed by 
the Secretary of Commerce, after examination to be held under his direc- 
tion to determine their competency, . . . $100,000. (38 Stat. 500, act of 
July 16, 1914.) 

Federal Trade Commission. — . . . With the exception of the secre- 
tary, a clerk to each commissioner, the attorneys, and such special experts 
and examiners as the commission may from time to time find necessary 
for the conduct of its work, all employees of the commission shall be a 
part of the classified civil service, and shall enter the service under such 
rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the commission and by the 
Civil Service Commission. (38 Stat. 718, act of Sept. 26, 1914.) 

Federal Farm-Loan Board. — . . . All such attorneys, experts, assist- 
ants, clerks, laborers, and other employees and all registrars, examiners, 
and appraisers shall be appointed without regard to the provisions of the 
act of January 16, 1883, . . . and amendments thereto, or any rule or 
regulation made in pursuance thereof : Provided, That nothing herein 
shall prevent the President from placing said employees in the classified 
service. (39 Stat. 361, act of July 17, 1916.) 

Shipping Board. — . . . With the exception of the secretary, a clerk 
to each commissioner, the attorneys, naval architects, and such special 
experts and examiners as the board may from time to time find necessary 
to employ for the conduct of its work, all employees of the board shall be 
appointed from lists of eligibles to be supplied by the Civil Service Com- 
mission and in accordance with the civil service law. (39 Stat. 729, act of 
Sept. 7, 1916.) 

Tariff Commission. — . . . With the exception of the secretary, a clerk 
to each commis?ioner, and such special experts as the commission may 
from time to time find necessary for the conduct of its work, all employees 
of the commission shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be supplied 



66 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

In the cases of the Federal Reserve Board and the Fed- 
eral Farm Loan Board, the exception from the statute may 
be revoked by the President. These cases, therefore, consti- 
tute no real exception to the civil service law. The difference 
is that under the civil service law specific action by the Presi- 
dent is required to except positions from competition; whereas 
here the exception is made by statute but may be revoked by 
the President. 

The language employed in the acts providing for the ex- 
ception is far from uniform. The act relating to deputy col- 
lectors of internal revenue and deputy marshals provides that 
they "may be appointed . . . without regard to the pro- 
visions of 'the civil service law' or any rule or regulation made 
in pursuance thereof." The same language is used in the 
acts relating to the appointment of the employees of the Fed- 
eral Reserve Board, the Federal Farm Loan Board, and to the 
persons employed to enforce the contract labor law, and spe- 

by the Civil Service Commission and in accordance with the civil service 
law. (39 Stat. 795, act of Sept. 8, 1916.) 

Imvtigration Service. — . . . said Secretary, in the enforcement of that 
portion of this act which excludes contract laborers and induced and 
assisted immigrants, may employ, for such purposes and for detail upon 
additional service under this act when not so engaged, without reference 
to the provisions of the said civil service act . . . such persons as he may 
deem advisable ... (39 Stat. 893. act of Feb. 5, 1917-) 

Veterans' Bureau. — . . . With the exception of the director, the 
commissioners, and such special experts as the Secretary of the Treasury 
may from time to time find necessary for the conduct of the work of 
the bureau, all employees of the bureau shall be appointed from lists 
of eligibles to be supplied by the Civil Service Commission and in accord- 
ance with the civil service law. . . . (40 Stat. 400, act of Oct. 6, 1917, 
as amended by the act of August 9, 1921 (Public No. 47, 67th Congress).) 

Technical and Clerical Services in Connectio'n zvith Construction of 
Hospitals, Public Health Service. — Sec. 10. And the Secretary of the 
Treasury is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to employ, for service 
within or without the District of Colum.bia, without regard to civil service 
laws, rules, and regulations, and to pay from the sums hereby authorized 
and appropriated for construction purposes, at customary rates of com- 
pensation, such additional technical and clerical services as may be neces- 
sary, exclusively to aid in the preparation of the drawings and specifications 
for the above-named objects [additional hospital facilities for discharged 
sick and disabled soldiers] and supervision of the execution thereof, for 
traveling expenses, and printing incident thereto, at a total limit of cost 
for such additional technical and clerical services and traveling expenses, 
and so forth, of not exceeding $210,000 of the above-named limit of cost. 
All of the above-mentioned work shall be under the direction and super- 
vision of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, subject to 
the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. (40 Stat., 1304.) 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 67 

cial architectural or other technical experts for the construction 
of public buildings. The remaining acts use a precisely op- 
posite formula: that "with the exception of" the employees 
in question, all other employees of the board or bureau in 
question "shall be appointed from lists of eligibles to be sup- 
plied by the Civil Service Commission and in accordance with 
the civil service law." 

It is to be noted that in all cases, except those already 
mentioned in which the exclusion from the civil service law 
is only tentative and may be terminated by the President, the 
act definitely excludes the employees affected from any pos- 
sible inclusion under the provisions of the civil service law 
generally. There would seem to be nothing in the acts, how- 
ever, which would prevent the President from exercising, with 
reference to these classes of employees any more than any 
others, the powers conferred on him by the act of 1871. Such 
being the case, it is perfectly possible for him, despite these 
provisions of law, to apply to these positions the same sys- 
tem of selection as would be applied were they under the 
civil service law, or for that matter, a system of selection 
placing on the discretion of the appointing officers an even 
more severe restriction than is imposed under the civil serv- 
ice rules. It may thus be said that the acts in question are 
merely in the nature of a moral mandate to the President and 
in no wise limit his power over the system of selection to be 
applied to these positions. It was doubtless this power which 
President Wilson had in mind when he declared, in a memo- 
randum explaining his approval of the act of October 22, 
19 1 3, exempting deputy collectors of internal revenue and dep- 
uty marshals from the operation of the civil service acts, that 
"The control of the whole method and spirit of the admin- 
istration of the proviso in this bill which concerns the appoint- 
ment of these officers is no less entirely in my hands now than 
it was before this bill became law." ^ Perhaps, however, the 
reference was merely to the control possessed by the President 

^ Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1914), P- 138. 



68 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

by virtue of his general power of direction, based on his power 
of removal. 

It need hardly be said that no justification exists for any 
of the exceptions to the civil service act made by these statutes. 
The President possesses ample authority to except from open 
competitive selection any position if it seems to him that the 
exception will facilitate the government's work. The only 
explanation for this succession of exceptions from the com- 
petitive principle is the irrepressible desire on the part of cer- 
tain elements in Congress to extend the area of political ap- 
pointment. 

Exception of Designated Individuals. — In addition to the 
exception of specific positions made by the rules or statutes, 
provision is made by the rules for excepting designated indi- 
viduals from the requirement of competitive examination. The 
rules provide (Rule II, Sec. lo) : 

Whenever the commission shall find that the duties or com- 
pensation of a vacant position are such, or that qualified per- 
sons are so rare, that, in its judgment, such position cannot, 
in the interest of good civil-service administration, be filled 
at that time through open competitive examination, it may 
authorize such vacancy to be filled without competitive exam- 
ination ; and in any case in which such authority may be given, 
evidence satisfactory to the commission of the qualifications 
of the person to be appointed without competitive examination 
shall be required. A detailed statement of the reasons for 
its action in any case arising hereunder shall be made in the 
records of the commission and shall be published in its annual 
report. 

As distinguished from the exceptions made by the Presi- 
dent which apply to a given position whenever a vacancy occurs 
in it, those under this rule consist only in filling a particular 
vacancy at a particular time. To make this interpretation 
doubly sure the rule, in fact, provides that "any subsequent 
vacancy in such position shall not be filled without competitive 
examination, except upon express authority of the Commis- 
sion in accordance with this section." The rule is intended, 
of course, only for the most exceptional use and ordinarily 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 69 

it has been so employed. During the war, however, frequent 
use was made of it by the War Department, the War Trade 
Board, and the Department of Commerce. 

Two classes of cases are embraced under the rule. In the 
one the exception from competition is called for because of 
the nature of the "duties or compensation" ; that is presumably 
where the duties are so arduous, hazardous, or unattractive, 
and the compensation so low, that it may be assumed that there 
will be no competition and that the service should deem itself 
fortunate to obtain any applicants willing to accept. Where 
such condition exists, however, it would seem that the position 
itself should be placed in the excepted class, as have several 
positions that fall in this category. 

The second class under this rule embraces cases in which 
"qualified persons are so rare that open competitive examina- 
tion is undesirable." The grounds upon which this provision 
can be defended are difficult to see. The fact that qualified 
persons are very rare so far as the knowledge of the depart- 
ment or the Commission goes, would seem to furnish the best 
possible reason why open competition should be invited, in the 
hope that additional qualified persons, whose identity may not 
be known to the department or the Commission, may present 
themselves. It may be urged, however, that this rule permits 
the designation of a person of such high and unusual qualifica- 
tions that he would decline to enter a competition for the place. 
Examination of the cases in which the Commission has actually 
applied the rule, as set forth in its Annual Report, does not, 
however, support the belief that such instances have actually 
occurred. In point of fact the Commission has always been 
studious to point out that, under the method of non-assembled 
examination, which it invariably employs for the higher posts, 
applications have been secured from individuals of the highest 
distinction in their several lines of work. 

In addition to this method of excepting designated indi- 
viduals from competition which is recognized by the rules, the 
practice has grown up of issuing executive orders excepting 
designated individuals from examination. Persons so ap- 



JO THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

pointed have all the rights and privileges of persons appointed 
through competitive examination/ Under a practice inaugu- 
rated by President Roosevelt, requests for such orders are 
submitted to the Civil Service Commission for recommenda- 
tion before being passed on by the President; ^ but instances 
are relatively numerous in which the President has issued such 
orders, despite the non-concurrence of the Commission. 

The practice of special exception by the President has de- 
veloped proportionately to the increasing rigidity of the com- 
petitive system. During the first fifteen or twenty years after 
the passage of the act, while a large though steadily dimin- 
ishing area still remained to which the principle of competition 
had not yet been applied, but few requests were made to the 
President for the suspension of the rules. Since the applica- 
tion of competitive methods to virtually all positions in the 
classified service, which became effective about 1900, the ex- 
ceptions have averaged about one per week. The number of 
exceptions made in each year, beginning with 1901, is as fol- 
lows: 

1901 3 1911 47 

1902 10 1912 66 

1903 30 1913 91 

1904 22 1914 yy 

1905 60 1915 91 

1906 71 1916 73 

1907 17 1917 8s 

1908 64 1918 ' 13 



1909 38 • 

1910 55 973 

In about 125 cases the Commission has advised the Presi- 
dent against the making of the exception, but has been over- 

^ Minute of the Civil Service Commission, April 6, 1904. Thirty-fifth 
Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1918), p. 65. 

^In rare instances (perhaps no more than a dozen in all) this practice 
has been ignored by the President. 

^ The small number of exceptions made in 1918 was doubtless due to 
the fact that owing to the war emergency there were in force a large 
number of general orders excepting large classes of positions, and in some 
cases the entire personnel of a service, from competition, so that it was 
possible for virtually everybody to find employment without seeking execu- 
tive intervention. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 71 

ridden. In all the remaining cases, except a very few where 
its opinion has not been sought, it has either expressly ap- 
proved or offered no recommendation. 

By far the most common reason advanced for making the 
exception is that the persons whose exception is proposed pos- 
sess special fitness or availability. Of the 973 orders listed 
above no less than 498 would fall under this head. The 
plea of special fitness is hardly valid since the open competi- 
tive method is eminently suitable to secure the services of the 
individual whose appointment is sought if he, in fact, pos- 
sesses the "special fitness" alleged. As an illustration of the 
unconvincing character of the statements made in connection 
with some of the executive orders making exceptions on this 
ground may be cited the following: 

Mrs. , of California, may be appointed to a position 

in the United States Employment Service of the Department 
of Labor, without reference to the civil service rules. Her 
appointment is recommended by the Secretary of Labor. It 

is stated that Mrs. possesses qualifications which 

eminently fit her for a position in the employment service. 
The Civil Service Commission does not concur in the recom- 
mendation. 

Under the head of "special availability" are found, for 
the most part, cases in which a person is already in the service 
in one capacity and whose assignment, transfer, or promotion 
to the position desired is interdicted by the rules. In a few 
instances it may be that the situation is so peculiar that spe- 
cial exception should be resorted to, but in most cases, if the 
rule has any merit, there is no reason for setting it aside. 

A related class of cases, and the next largest numerically, 
being larger indeed than all the remaining classes combined, 
is that in which the person in whose favor the exception is 
made has been separated from the service for more than a 
year and is thus ineligible for reinstatement. These cases 
numbered 231 during the period covered by the figures above 
given. They doubtless indicate that the rule limiting eligi- 
bility to reinstatement in all cases to one year is unduly severe, 



^^2 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

and at a subsequent point where this matter is considered the 
recommendation is made that the rule should be made more 
elastic. Nevertheless, so long as it remains the rule, it should 
be enforced. 

Other exceptions of persons who could not meet one or 
another of the requirements in the rules (in most cases with 
respect to physical qualifications) numbered 94 out of the total 
of 973 exceptions above listed. Here again the same con- 
sideration applies as in the two preceding cases. 

The last important class of exceptions, embracing 81 dur- 
ing the period covered, is made up of cases in which appoint- 
ment without examination was permitted to a woman on the 
death or disability of her husband, son, or brother, upon whom 
she was dependent for support. At first blush, the mere 
fact that the person upon whom she was dependent was for- 
merly in the service would seem to give the dependent no claim 
whatever to a position in the service. Looked at from the 
standpoint of the employees already in the service, however, 
much may be said for a policy of assuring employment, within 
such limits as may be consistent with the good of the service, 
to dependents of employees left without support upon the 
death or disability of the employee. Such a policy would have 
an obvious value in making the service attractive to the em- 
ployee in exactly the same way that retirement and insurance 
benefits do so, but if such a policy is adopted it should be care- 
fully formulated and promulgated as a general rule to the 
benefits of which all would be equally entitled under like con- 
ditions. Moreover, careful limitations should obviously be 
placed in the rule to safeguard the service against an undue 
access of personnel of this type. Manifestly none of these re- 
quirements are satisfied by the practice of making these ex- 
ceptions by executive order. 

A special class of exceptions embraces cases arising from 
time to time, through the discontinuance of certain temporary 
agencies, necessitating the discharge of employees. In the 
few cases of this kind which have occurred provision has been 
made by executive order permitting the appointment of these 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 73 

clerks without competitive examination. In some of these 
cases the employees had originally entered the service of the 
temporary agency without examination, so that there was little 
reason for these exceptions in their favor. In any case, how- 
ever, there should be a permanent rule to cover cases of this 
kind. At another place account is given of the recent es- 
tablishment under executive order of reemployment registers 
which should make any further exceptions under this head 
entirely unnecessary. 

In summary, the sound method of providing for any meri- 
torious cases which are now taken care of by special excep- 
tion would seem to be the formulation of general rules, de- 
fining all those possible classes of cases in which an exception 
from competiton seems desirable. A study of the large num- 
ber of such special exceptions which have been granted in the 
past twenty years should make it possible to bring within the 
sweep of such rules virtually every type of case in which ex- 
ception should properly be granted. The Commission should 
then be authorized to pass upon individual applications under 
any one of the rules thus provided. 

Even if no such general rules are framed, however, every 
consideration would seem to demand that the Commission 
rather than the President should be vested with the power to 
grant special exceptions. If this much cannot be accomplished, 
the President at least should make it a rule not to overrule the 
recommendations of the Commission when the latter recom- 
mends a denial of the application for special exception, and 
the Commission in turn, once its power becomes more than 
that of mere privilege of expressing an opinion, should make 
its procedure in this matter more formal.^ 
Laborers. — "Persons employed merely as laborers and 
workmen," as already stated, are excluded specifically from 
the operation of the civil service law. They fall, however, 
under the more inclusive class of "persons in the civil serv- 

^ The National Civil Service Reform League has gone on record as 
favoring a procedure of this kind. Good Government, vol. 3;^ (January, 
1916), p. 15. 



74 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ice of the United States" covered by the act of 1871, and 
it is, therefore, within the power of the President "to pre- 
scribe such regulations for the admission of persons" as 
laborers "as may best promote the efficiency thereof and 
ascertain the fitness of each candidate in respect to age, 
health, character, and knowledge and ability." Under this 
authority it is possible for the President to set up a system 
of selection identical with or even more rigid than that 
which he may have prescribed for persons to whom the 
civil service law is applicable. But as in the case of the 
classes of employees excepted from the application of 
the civil service law by special statutes he cannot apply to 
persons employed merely as laborers or workmen the other 
provisions of the civil service law or other statutes relating 
exclusively to "classified" positions, which will be discussed 
under subsequent heads. 

In fact, the President has established a system of open 
competitive physical examinations for this class of personnel, 
which now covers perhaps a majority of the class. The pre- 
cise extent and character of this system will appear in a sub- 
sequent chapter. 

Strict Construction of Exceptions from Formal Methods 
of Selection. — The exceptions from formal methods of 
selection which have been reviewed apply in some cases to 
specifically designated positions; in others, to all positions of 
a given class or title. Where the exception is of the latter 
class, it is essential that precaution be taken that appointments 
under the "excepted" procedure be confined to positions really 
covered by the exception; that persons be not appointed to 
excepted or unclassified positions and then assigned to duties 
properly belonging to a competitive position. The largest pos- 
sibilities for this kind of evasion for a long time were in con- 
nection with the assignment of persons appointed as "labor- 
ers" to duties properly belonging to clerical or sub-clerical 
positions in the competitive classified service. 

The civil service law, as has already been pointed out, ex- 
cluded from the operation of its provisions regarding selection 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 75 

"any person merely employed as a laborer or workman" (Sec- 
tion 7), and while the President possesses power under the 
act of 1 87 1 to apply the competitive method to the selection 
of laborers, he did not exercise that power till 1904, and then 
only over a small portion of the field. Hence for over twenty 
years after the enactment of the civil service law, the labor 
positions remained outside the competitive system, and indeed 
untouched by any formal method of selection, except in the 
navy yards, where a system of formal registration was in- 
troduced early. It is not surprising that the tendency to use 
the unguarded entrance gate to labor positions as a means of 
evading the competitive system applied to the clerical positions 
should have reached significant proportions within a few years 
after the effective application of that system. In 1898 the 
Civil Service Commission thus reviewed the situation under 
this head as it had developed in the fifteen years since the en- 
actment of the civil service law : 

The pressure for place, being removed from positions cov- 
ered by competitive examination, is concentrated upon those 
outside. These so-called laborer places below the classified 
service are the only ones which can now be obtained through 
influence, and the pressure for these places is in consequence 
very great. The only way to remedy this is to withdraw places 
of laborers from patronage and to fill them under the registra- 
tion system, which has proved so admirable in filling places of 
laborers at navy-yards. 

Since 1883, when the civil service law was enacted, there 
has been an increase of about 37 per cent in the number, and 
43 per cent in the salaries, of the unclassified places, while 
there has been a slight decrease in the number of positions 
originally classified by the civil service act, as well as a de- 
crease in the appropriations for these positions. Practically 
all of the increase in the classified positions occurred before 
they were included in the classified service. The tendency 
toward increasing the number of unclassified positions, in 
evasion of the civil service act, is not peculiar to the federal 
service. The same abuses have been practiced in States where 
the merit system has been established.^ 

^Fifteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1898), p. 271. 



^6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

It would be of little value to review here the long succes- 
sion of executive orders and amendments to the rules which 
have been aimed at these abuses. Prior to 1904 the action 
taken was directed principally at preventing the performance 
of "classified" duties, that is, of duties not actually those of 
a "mere laborer or workman," by persons employed under the 
title of laborer and thus selected without examination or com- 
petition.^ The inherent difficulty of enforcing such orders, 
however, owing to the impossibility of any central inspection, 
over the vast area of the federal service, of the duties actually 
performed by the great numbers of laborers, is obvious. 

At the present time the terms of the rules on this point are 
sufficiently specific and mandatory. They provide (Rule II, 
Sec. 5) that 

laborers who, in connection with their usual duties, are to 
perform work of the grade performed by classified employees 
shall be appointed upon certification by the commission from 
appropriate registers of eligibles in the manner provided by 
these rules : and a person employed as a laborer or workman 
without examination under these rules shall not be assigned to 
work of the grade performed by classified employees.^ 

In order to keep the Civil Service Commission advised of 
the conduct of the department in applying this rule, it is fur- 
ther provided (Rule XIII) in connection with the requirement 

^ In addition these rules were aimed at the improper promotion of 
laborers to "classified" positions. This matter is treated in a subsequent 
chapter. 

^ "No persons shall be appointed or employed in any executive depart- 
ment or office for the performance of any service of the character per- 
formed by classified employees, except in accordance vi^ith the provisions 
of the civil service rules ; and before making any appointment or employ- 
ment for service with respect to which there may be a reasonable doubt 
as to the requirement of examination the head of the department or office 
shall confer with the Civil Service Commission for the purpose of deter- 
mining whether examination is required, and when such conference does 
not result in agreement the case shall be presented to the Attorney General 
for his opinion." (Executive Order, November 29, 1904.) 

". . . Unclassified laborers may be assigned to classified work inci- 
dentally, but not as a part of their main work, in cases where such work 
cannot be conveniently and economically done by classified employees, but 
never without the prior consent of the commission, obtained loefore such 
assignment, and with a view to the doing of the particular classified work 
in question by unclassified employees." (Executive Order, April 21, 
1909.) 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE ^^ 

(Section i) that "every nominating or appointing officer in 
the executive civil service shall report in detail to the com- 
mission whenever and in such manner as it may prescribe, all 
changes in the service under his authority, that (Section 3) : 

Reports of appointments and changes in status of mere 
laborers or workmen shall be accompanied by a statement 
setting forth specifically the kind of labor performed in detail 
sufficient to enable the commission to determine the status of 
each position as classified or unclassified; and a similar state- 
ment of duties performed by any employee or pertaining to 
any position in the executive civil service shall be furnished to 
the commission on request. All essential changes of duties 
pertaining to persons appointed as mere laborers or workmen 
without examination under the civil service rules shall be re- 
ported at once to the commission. 

In the regulations which have been promulgated for the 
application of the competitive method to labor positions in 
Washington, it is provided that: 

When an appointment or employment of an unskilled la- 
borer is to be made, the appointing officer shall request the 
board to certify eligibles, stating the principal duties of the 
position. If in the opinion of the board the duties are of the 
grade performed by classified employees, the fact shall be 
referred to the Civil Service Commission to determine the 
status of the position as classified or unclassified under section 
3 of civil service Rule XIII, and the vacancy shall be filled in 
accordance with such finding. 

No such procedure is provided in the case of appointments 
to labor positions in the field service, the regulations simply 
providing (VII, Sec. i) that: 

If a position of laborer requires, in connection with the 
usual duties of mere laborer, the performance of work of 
the grade done by classified employees, it should be filled from 
a register for the classified service and not under these regu- 
lations.^ 

^_ These regulations also provide (V, 3) that "heads of offices shall 
require assistant superintendents or foremen of divisions or crews to make 
monthly reports showing specifically the kind of labor performed by the 
unclassified laborers in their charge, which report shall be open to the 
inspection of the board and the commission." 



78 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

A person appointed to an unclassified position shall not be 
assigned to work of a classified competitive position, and shall 
not be transferred or promoted to such a position except in 
accordance with the Executive Order of April 21, 1909, vis: 

It appears that in certain cases the work of various depart- 
ments, independent offices, and bureaus is of such character 
that it cannot be economically and conveniently done consist- 
ently with a rigorous adherence to the division between classi- 
fied and unclassified work. In such cases classified laborers 
are engaged for the greater part of their time on unclassified 
work, but at the same time there is certain classified work 
which could be more economically and conveniently done if 
such laborers were permitted to do it incidentally, and not as 
a part of their main work or employment. 

It is therefore ordered that hereafter when such a state of 
things exists as is above recited, unclassified laborers may be 
assigned to classified work incidentally, but not as a part of 
their main work, in cases where such work cannot be con- 
veniently and economically done by classified employees, but 
never without the prior consent of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion, obtained before such assignment, and with a view to 
the doing of the particular classified work in question by un- 
classified employees. 

It is difficult to ascertain how effective the rules and regu- 
lations cited have been in preventing the employment of la- 
borers in duties other than those appropriate to the title. In 
the case of persons appointed as laborers in the field service, 
the regulations, as just stated, require periodical reports to 
the Civil Service Commission. In all other cases, the requir- 
ing of such repoi^ts is left to the Commission. The Commis- 
sion has not required by regulation the submission of the in- 
formation provided for by the rules at any regular periods; 
nor do its reports in recent years give evidence of any, con- 
sistent attempt to secure the strict enforcement of the rules 
on this head. 

Since the application of the competitive method to the se- 
lection of laborers in certain districts in 1904, and its gradual 
extension since that time, the importance of the distinction 
between duties appropriate only to classified positions, and 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 79 

those appropriate to the positions of "mere laborer or work- 
men" has steadily declined; and once the extension of the com- 
petitive method reaches completion, as it doubtless will in the 
near future, this distinction will become different only in de- 
gree, but hardly in kind, from the distinction between any 
two other classes of classified positions. 

The appointment of persons to positions "excepted" by 
the rules and their assignment to duties properly appertaining 
to competitive positions is a possible form of evasion of the 
competitive principle which, in the earlier days of the sys- 
tem, when the "excepted" positions were very numerous, was 
not infrequently resorted to. With the gradual narrowing of 
the area of "excepted" positions, however, and the specific 
provision of the rules that "not more than one position shall 
be treated as excepted under the title of any such position 
unless a different number be indicated," ^ the opportunity for 
this type of evasion has been diminished to a point where it 
is rather negligible. Substantially the same may be said of 
the "non-competitive positions." A zone where an appreciable 
opportunity for this type of evasion still exists, however, is 
in those services (the Shipping Board, the Federal Trade Com- 
mission, the Tariff Commission, the Veterans' Bureau and the 
Public Flealth Service, which have been authorized by statute to 
appoint specified classes of technical employees and such other 
"special experts" as may be needed. Here is obviously af- 
forded the possibility of appointing under the title of "special 
expert" classes of personnel who by no stretch of conscience 
could truthfully be so designated. While naturally no of- 
cial information is available on this point, there is reason to 
believe that this opportunity has not escaped the notice of the 
skilled job-hunter, and that it has been taken advantage of 
to a measurable extent. 

Similarly there has been from the beginning opportunity 
for evasion of the competitive requirement in the positions of 
deputy marshal and deputy collector of internal revenue, which, 
as already noted, are excepted from competition by special 

* Schedule I, Civil Service Rules, Paragraph i. 



8o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

statute; and with the unprecedented growth of the internal 
revenue service in recent years this opportunity has cor- 
respondingly grown. That it has not been lost sight of, but 
has been taken advantage of to the full, might have been sur- 
mised; and the Civil Service Commission is authority for the 
statement that a large proportion of the employees "appointed 
under the designation of deputy collector without reference 
to the rules are in fact employed principally as clerks, typists, 
addressograph operators, messengers, etc." ^ 

The Civil Service Commission to date has adopted no pro- 
cedure designed to prevent the possible abuse in the manner 
indicated of excepted, non-competitive, and statute-cxcepted 
positions. In connection with excepted and non-competitive 
positions, as already suggested, it is doubtful if there is any 
necessity for action. In connection with the "special expert 
positions" excepted by statute, however, it would be well for 
the Commission to obtain from the President an executive or- 
der requiring each of the establishments which enjoy the statu- 
tory exemption to obtain a certificate from the Commission, 
prior to making appointment to any position so exempted, that 
the position, under the statement of its proposed duties cer- 
tified by the department, is properly embraced within the terms 
of the statute.^ 

Another closely related evasion against which it is neces- 
sary to safeguard the competitive service is the improper pro- 
motion or transfer to competitive positions of persons holding 
positions not subject to examination — whether "excepted" or 
"unclassified" positions. The regulations bearing on this point 
will be considered in the chapters on promotion and transfers. 
Statistics of Employees According to Method of Selection 
Status. — Thoroughly satisfactory statistics are not avail- 
able showing the exact distribution of the federal personnel 
among the several primary legal classifications, namely : presi- 

* Thirty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, 

(19I9), p. XXI. 

"This suggestion runs, of course, on the assumption that statutory 
exceptions persist. The position has already been taken, however, that 
they should be abolished. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 8i 

dential, labor, classified, and excepted by statutes ; and, still less 
within each of these primary leg'al classifications, the numbers 
respectively selected by competitive or non-competitive exam- 
ination or wholly excepted from such examination. The lat- 
est figures under this head are those published in the Annual 
Report of the Civil Service Commission for 19 17. These 
show the number of federal employees on June 30, 191 7, un- 
der the four heads of : competitive classified; excepted and non- 
competitive; unclassified; and presidential. These data, some- 
what summarized, are given on the following pages . 
Tradition in Selection. — It must not be inferred that over 
the whole area of "excepted" positions and of "presidential" 
positions to which no formal system of selection has been ap- 
plied, selection is invariably or unqualifiedly political. Such 
is far from the case. In a number of excepted positions, 
despite the total absence of formal methods of selection, merit 
controls almost exclusively; in others merit and political con- 
siderations mingle in uncertain degree, varying even with re- 
spect to the same position from one time to another. Prob- 
ably in only a minority of "excepted" positions (if the numer- 
ous deputy marshals and deputy revenue collectors be ex- 
cluded) is appointment determined solely by politics. In the 
"presidential" positions to which no formal method of selec- 
tion is applied the situation is equally varied, at least with 
respect to appointment at Washington. Certain of the bureau 
headships are filled solely on a merit basis; others solely on 
political grounds.^ 

Again where it is stated that selection is controlled by 
political considerations it is not intended to imply that all con- 
siderations of efficiency and fitness are ignored. In not a few 
of the posts which will hereinafter be characterized as being 
filled by political appointees, the incumbents are, and often 
customarily have been, men well equipped for their posts ; but 
they are none the less political appointees in that they have 
been selected, not for outstanding qualifications which distin- 

* The actual tradition in this regard in respect to the general classes of 
excepted and presidential positions is discussed in the next chapter. 



82 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 



Department 



Grand Total of Table . . . 

In Washington, D. C. 

White House 

State Department 

Treasury Department 

War Department 

Navy Department 

Post Office Department . . . 
Interior Department 

St. Elizabeth's Hospital . 

Miscellaneous 

Department of Justice .... 
Department of Agriculture. 
Department of Commerce . 
Interstate Commerce Com- 



mission 

Civil Service Commission . 

Bureau of Efficiency 

Smithsonian Institution and 
Bureaus 

State, War, and Navy De- 
partment Building . . . . 

The Panama Canal 

Government Printing Office 

Federal Trade Commission. 

Total : in Washington, D. C. 



Number of Positions on June 30, 1917 



Total 



497^ 

39 

376 

9.464 

4,558 
1,741 

1,555 
5,147 
1,138 
204 
1,500 

5,251 
3,176 

978 

240 

42 

778 

258 

135 

4,593 

244 



326,899 



41,417 



t> ty 



280 

8,693 
4,360 

1,725 
1,452 
4,604 
1,135 
135 
257 
4,371 
2,384 

814 

227 

41 

468 

157 

109 

4,120 

145 



35,477 






125,740 



36 

81 
61 

30 

II 

13 

169 
3 

3.S4 

461 

22 

130 
I 



I 

14 

5 

93^ 

1,490 



Un- 
classi- 
fied 



33,094 



3 
10 

684 
161 

3 

84 

330 

69 

32 

416 

749 

24 

7 



305 

100 

12 

467 



3,457 



Presi- 
den- 
tial 



12,134 



S 
26 

7 

2 

6 

44 



'857 

3 

21 

10 

5 
I 



993 



^ Secretary, 2 assistant secretaries, 19 bureau officers, Indian allotting 
agent, recorder of deeds, register of wills, 10 members of Board of Indian 
Commissioners, and 9 members of board of visitors to St. Elizabeth's 
Hospital. 

'Officers of the Department, 18; commissioners of deeds, 23; notaries 
public for the District of Columbia, 800; trustees reform school, 16. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 83 
Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 — Contimied 





Numbei 


• of Positions on June 30, 1917 


Department 


Total 


0) -a 

> (U 
+-» in 


:ed and 
- com- 
ive 


Un- 
classi- 


Presi- 
den- 






<U in 




fied 


tial 






ic 












U 


w 






Outside Washington, D. C. 












Treasury Department 












Assistant Custodian and 












Janitor Service and 












contingent force on 












public buildings 


5,44] 


2,562 


52 


2,827 




Mint and Assay Service . 


90? 


717 


30 


145 


16 


Subtreasury Service 


40C 


390 




I 


9 


Public Health Service . . 


3,518 


1,939 


1,263 


124 


192 


Coast Guard Service . . . 


54 


54 








Customs Service 


6,461 


5,646 


215 


491 


109 


Internal Revenue Service 


4,927 


3,044 


1,813 


6 


64 


Miscellaneous 


432 


176 


250 


6 




War Department 


~XJ 






Quartermaster Corps . . . 


10,545 


6,446 


1,181 


2,918 




Ordnance Department at 












large 


11,387 


9,500 


89 


1,798 




Engineer Department at 


7*J / 






large 


I =1,767 


8,764 


916 

827 


6,087 




Miscellaneous 


3,305 


1,678 


800 




Navy Department 


xJJkJ tJ 


* ?"/ 






Exclusive of trades and 












labor positions 


4,679 


4,659 


19 


I 




Trades and labor positions 


40,000 


32,000 




8,000 




Post Office Department , . . 


522 


522 








Post Office except fourth- 












class postmasters 


187,982 


79,221 


96,785 


1,642 


10,334 


Fourth-class postmasters . 


45,079 


45,079 








Rural Carrier Service . . . 


43,339 


43,339 








Railway Mail Service . . . 


21,191 


21,191 








Department of the Interior 












Land Service 


1,311 
4,502 


1,062 


25 
4,502 


14 


210 


Pension examining sur- 




geons 












Indian Service 


7,665 
3,853 


2,'^95 


4,453 
7 


811 


6 


Reclamation Service 


3,842 


4 




Miscellaneous 


969 


558 


386 


18 


7 





84 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Positions by Status, June 30, 1917 — Continued 



Department 



Outside Washington, D. C. — 

Continued 

Department of Justice 

Department of Agriculture. 
Department of Commerce . 

Lighthouse Service . . . . , 

Steamboat Inspection Ser 

vice 

Department of Labor 
Immigration Service 

Miscellaneous 

Interstate Commerce Com 

mission , 

Civil Service Commission 
Panama Canal Service ^ . . , 

Total, Outside Washing 
ton, D. C 



Number of Positions on June 30, 19 17 



Total 



3,012 

15,018 

204 

6,655 

371 

I,9TQ 

2,668 

1,392 

36 

938 



> (U 



(U o 

W 



Un- 
classi- 
fied 



456,450 



732 
8,570 

3,041 

355 

1,500 
179 

1,371 

36 

854 



Presi- 
den- 
tial 



291,422 



2,097 

5,553 
204 

2,419 


7 
895 

1,195 


6 




209 
844 


202 
1,645 


21 




84 


29,6371 


124,250 



176 



10 



11,141 



guished them as peculiarly qualified for the particular post, 
but because of poHtical services rendered the party in power. 
Should another party come into power, they would be replaced 
by men probably equally as well equipped, appointed for po- 
litical service rendered the incoming party. The significant 
thing is that they are not a permanent part of the adminis- 
trative personnel, but a transient group of political careerists, 
to whom service in the administrative branch of the govern- 
ment is but an incident in a political career, which may embrace 
equally legislative or even judicial posts. 
Term of Office. — The only "presidential" officers at 
Washington in the general Departmental Service who have a 



^ Not including unclassified and excepted working force which, on June 
30, 1917, numbered 19,938. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 85 

definite term of office are the Comptroller of the Currency, the 
Director of the Mint, the Surgeon General of the Public 
Health Service, the Director of the Coast and Geodetic Sur- 
vey, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, the Purchasing 
Agent of the Post Office Department, and the members of the 
several independent boards and commissions (except the Civil 
Service Commission). The term of office provided for the 
Comptroller of the Currency and the Director of the Mint 
is five years; for the Surgeon General of the Public Health 
Service, four years ; ^ for the several boards, from three to 
twelve years. The term of the Postmaster General is fixed by 
law as being "for and during the term of the President by 
whom he is appointed, and for one month thereafter, unless 
sooner removed." ^ As opposed to these officers at Washing- 
ton, the local chief officers appointed by the President and 
Senate are in almost all cases appointed for a term of four 
years. These are the sole provisions of law regarding term of 
office of "presidential" officers. With these exceptions, all 
"presidential" officers of the United States have an indefinite 
tenure of office or employment. 

The four-year term of the local officer, far from affording 
protection against political removal, almost inevitably makes 
his office a political one, since at the expiration of his term he 
continues in office only until his successor is appointed. 
Moreover, if appointed at the beginning of one administration, 
as a large proportion of these officers usually are, the ques- 
tion of reappointment will arise automatically at the beginning 
of the next administration, the open season for all political 
appointments and removals. The existence of this four-year 

^ While the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service is at pres- 
ent appointed for a term of four years this term is not fixed by law. 
The regulations of the Public Health Service provide that the term of 
office of the Surgeon General shall be four years, but since the regulations 
are promulgated by the President he may amend or ignore them. From 
1871 to 191 1 the Public Health Service (Marine Hospital Service and 
Public Health and Marine Hospital Service) had only four surgeons 
general. After a vacancy had been created by death in 191 1, President 
Taft in 1912 appointed the new Surgeon General for a term of four 
years. The incumbent was reappointed by 1916, but a new head of the 
service was appointed in 1920. 

* Revised Statutes, Sec, 388. 



86 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

term thus presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the growth 
of an effective tradition of selection for merit. It is conceiv- 
able, of course, that if the original selection for any group of 
these officers were placed, as the appointment of presidential 
postmaster is now in process of being placed, upon a formalized 
basis, dependent solely on merit, the renomination and con- 
firmation at the expiration of the four-year period of those 
who had rendered satisfactory service would become auto- 
matic. Under these conditions the tenure would resemble 
that of the officers of many corporations who hold by election 
by the board of directors from year to year. Nevertheless the 
conditions of public life are so much more precarious that even 
such a basis would be unsatisfactory. With the appointing 
power vested in a political officer, all administrative officers 
should hold office indefinitely during good behavior. 

In the case of the independent boards and commissions the 
terms are not only fixed but overlapping so that at most 
one vacancy occurs a year. This fact, combined with the mul- 
tiple membership of these bodies, brings it about that it will 
ordinarily be impossible for the President, except by a whole- 
sale removal of members at the beginning of his adminis- 
tration, to change the political or personal complexion of the 
body. The same situation might exist, of course, if the tenure 
of these officers were indefinite, but it may be that in the 
case of some of the boards there would then exist a stronger 
temptation to wholesale removal by enforced "resignations" 
at the beginning of an administration. The long fixed term 
in these cases has a moral value. It seems to give the incum- 
bent something of a vested right in the office for the statutory 
period, while indefinite tenure carries no such force. The 
superficially inconsistent, but nevertheless correct, conclusion 
thus seems to be that whereas in the case of an individual of- 
ficer a fixed term is merely a recurrent invitation to removal 
for political reasons, in the case of a board of large member- 
ship, fixed terms, particularly where arranged to overlap, fur- 
nish a measure of security against such removal. 

The term of office of all non-presidential officers and em- 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 87 

ployees is indefinite. It would seem to go without saying that 
this should properly be so — that in the government service the 
subordinate personnel should hold during good behavior — yet 
periodically the proposition is made that all the federal em- 
ployees should be placed on a fixed-term basis. No longer ago 
than 1896, the platform of the Democratic party declared 
against "life tenure in office" and favored "fixed terms of of- 
fice." In 19 1 2 a bill fixing a seven-year term for all classi- 
fied employees actually passed both Houses of Congress and 
was saved from enactment only by the veto of President Taft. 
In 19 14 bills were again introduced, one calling for a ten- 
year tenure and one for a six-year tenure. Even in 19 18 in 
the report of a wholly non-p . 'ical body, the Tariff Commis- 
sion, we find the same curious notion cropping up in the recom- 
mendation that while the appointment of collectors of the cus- 
toms should be placed upon a strictly merit basis, their terms 
of office should be fixed at six years. 

The philosophy behind these proposals is in some cases 
none other than the familiar one of "rotation in office." In 
his letter of acceptance to the Democratic Convention of 1896 
the candidate for President, William Jennings Bryan, com- 
menting on the plank above referred to, declared that "a per- 
manent office-holding class is not in harmony with our in- 
stitutions; a fixed term in appointive office, except where the 
Federal Constitution now provides otherwise, would open the 
public service to a large number of citizens without impairing 
its efficiency," and in his convention speech he had indeed given 
a still more naive expression to this doctrine, saying "what 
we oppose in that plank is the life tenure which is being built 
up at Washington which excludes from participation in its 
benefits all the humbler members of our society." 

The more recent attempts to enact a fixed tenure of office 
for classified employees have generally proceeded, however, on 
the ostensible ground that only by such methods may the evils 
of superannuation in the Federal service be avoided without 
the enormous burden of a retirement system. Quite aside 
from the objection that the remedy proposed is, from every 



88 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

sound consideration of personnel administration, far worse 
than the disease, it is, of course, certain as pointed out by 
President Taft in his veto message, that such a measure would 
be ineffective to prevent superannuation unless, indeed, it went 
to the extreme of absolutely prohibiting the reemployment 
of any person at the expiration of the fixed term. The pro- 
posals in question, however, have provided in each case that 
a person separated by their terms from the classified service, 
may be reappointed, in the discretion of the head of the depart- 
ment, without examination for another term. As President 
Taft pointed out in his message vetoing the proposed act of 
19 1 2, "it has been found impossible to secure an enforcement 
of the present law which requires every person who is not 
efficient in the service of the government to be discharged, be- 
cause it imposes upon the heads of departments and bureaus 
the disagreeable and ungracious duty of throwing out of em- 
ployment, without any means of livelihood, the men and women 
who have spent many years in the employment of the gov- 
ernment and in times past have rendered good service. . . . 
There will be the same pressure to retain the clerk at the end 
of the seven years as there was to maintain his minimum rate, 
and the same reluctance as in the present system to turn him 
out at an advanced age without means of a livelihood after 
long years of service." 

Over a large area of the service, while the tenure is legally 
indefinite, tradition requires that the incumbent resign on 
change of administration, this being the accepted ceremonial 
method of effecting removal. Should any incumbent to whose 
office this tradition applies violate the official etiquette by fail- 
ing to tender his resignation voluntarily, it would be asked for. 

In the case of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Di- 
rector of the Mint, despite the unique five-year term, which, if 
regularly adhered to, would find every fifth presidential admin- 
istration opening with these two officers newly appointed for 
a five-year term by the retiring president, it has been customary 
for the incumbent of these offices to resign upon a change of 
administration. Such a custom, of course, sets at naught any 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 89 

provision regarding term of office. The local officer appointed 
for a four-year term generally continues in office for a con- 
siderable period after the change of administration, awaiting 
the expiration of his term or the appointment of his successor. 

In the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only inde- 
pendent board having fixed tenure of office which antedated 
the Wilson administration, the custom has never developed of 
resigning upon change of administration ; and it does not seem 
probable that such a custom will develop in the several boards 
created since 19 13. 

Over the remainder of the service, in which indefinite legal 
tenure prevails, the general rule is, of course, that there is no 
tradition requiring resignation in the positions to which selec- 
tion is by formal methods, whether competitive or non-com- 
petitive. As to the positions for which no formal methods of 
selection obtain, the tradition regarding resignation closely 
follows that regarding selection. Where the tradition of 
selection on merit is firmly fixed, it is no longer customary, 
generally speaking, for the incumbent to tender resignation on 
a change of administration ; and where this is done, the tender 
is perfunctory and not real. Where the tradition of selection 
is frankly and unequivocally political, the tender is invariably 
made and almost as invariably accepted. In the twilight zone, 
in which not a few "presidential" and "excepted" positions lie, 
where the tradition of selection is not firmly settled on either a 
merit or political basis, the tender of resignation is not cus- 
tomary. It should be noted that many of the positions 
specially excepted by statute from the application of the pro- 
visions of the civil service law regarding selection fall under 
the newer independent boards and commissions which, because 
of their plural membership and overlapping fixed terms, do 
not experience a "change of administration" in the same way 
as do executive departments. The tenure of the incumbents 
of these statute-excepted positions, therefore, tends to be in- 
definite in fact as well as in law. 

Protection against Removal for Political Reasons. — The 
Constitution is entirely silent on the question of removal (ex- 



90 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

cept as the provisions regarding impeachment fall under this 
head). Since it is settled law that in the absence of express 
provisions to the contrary, the power to remove is an incident of 
the power to appoint, it might be argued that as to those posi- 
tions to which appointment is by express provisions of the Con- 
stitution required to be with the advice and consent of the Sen- 
ate, removal should also be by the advice and consent of that 
body. Again, as to those officers the power of whose appoint- 
ment resides in the President and Senate wholly by virtue of 
statute (whether expressly or by omission to specify) sound 
theory would seem to require that Congress may limit the 
power of removal in any way it sees fit, since the power of 
appointment is wholly its creation.^ 

The settled practice of the government, however, has been 
otherwise from the beginning, the President alone exercising 
the power of removal from all "presidential" positions. Nor 
has Congress in any case prescribed anything constituting a real 
limitation on the power of the President to remove those whom 
he has appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate.^ 
In a few cases it has prescribed what might be termed moral 
restrictions. If the Comptroller of the Currency or the Di- 
rector of the Mint are removed before the expiration of the 
five-year period, the President must communicate the reasons 
to the Senate. In the creation of the independent boards and 
commissions of recent years, several of which have powers 

* The power of the President to remove military and naval oflficers is 
very greatly limited by statute, and from a constitutional standpoint there 
is no reason why the President's power of removal of civil officers should 
be less subject to the control of Congress; in fact, there is less reason why 
it should be exempt from Congressional control, in that over the army 
and navy the President is constitutionally commander-in-chief, a position 
which he does not constitutionally occupy over the civil establishment. 

' As is well known, Congress, in 1867, in the course of its conflict with 
President Johnson, enacted the so-called "Tenure of Office Acts'^ (Act of 
March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 430, and Act of April 5, 1869, 16 Stat. 6, both con- 
tained in Revised Statutes, Sees. 1767-1775), by which the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate was required for the removal of any officer whose 
appointment is made with the advice and consent of the Senate. It was 
the refusal to obey this law that constituted one of the principal articles 
in the bill of impeachment brought against Johnson. The constitutionality 
of this act was never squarely brought before the courts, and after the 
failure of the impeachment it became a dead letter, but was not actually 
repealed until 1887 (Act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 500), 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 91 

which might be denominated quasi- judicial, it has provided 
that removal before the expiration of the statutory term pro- 
vided (which varies from three to twelve years) shall be only 
for reasons connected with the good of the service. Aside 
from these special cases, the power of the President tO' remove 
from offices to which he has appointed is unlimited. It may be 
said, therefore, that there exists no legal restriction on the 
power of removal from presidential positions. 

Since all appointing power other than that exercised by the 
President and Senate is derived wholly from statute, the power 
to determine the conditions under which any "non-presidential" 
officer or employee may be removed is wholly within the con- 
trol of Congress. The right to remove may be limited by 
statute in any way or may even be conferred upon an authority 
other than the appointing authority. But the only provision 
of law which Congress has in fact enacted, designed to limit 
the power of removal from non-presidential positions, other 
than acts applicable solely to the competitive class, is that found 
in the civil service act (Sec. 13) and now embodied in the 
Criminal Code of 1910 (Sec. 119). This provision forbids 
any officer of the United States (other than the President, who 
is not included in its terms) to "discharge . . . any other of- 
ficer or employee, for giving or withholding or neglecting to 
make any contribution of money or other valuable thing for 
any political purpose." 

In addition the act specifies, as one of the "eight funda- 
mental provisions," which it authorizes and enjoins upon the 
President to "provide and declare" in the rules promulgated by 
him, "that no person in the public service is for that reason 
under any obligations to contribute to any political fund, or 
render any political service, and that he will not be removed 
or otherwise prejudiced for refusing to do so." ' It will be 

* The mandate to the President on this point is subject to the qualifica- 
tion that is applied by the terms of the act to all the "eight fundamental 
provisions," namely that they shall be provided for only "as nearly as the 
conditions of good administration will warrant." It is significant of the 
consistent purpose of the framers of the act to allow to the President the 
widest discretion possible that they should have thought it appropriate to 



92 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

observed that this injunction, like the direct statutory prohi- 
bition just cited, appHes only to removal for failure to make a 
political contribution and does not cover removal for political 
reasons generally. From the beginning the rules themselves, 
however, have gone further than this; and the present rules 
provide that : "No discrimination shall be exercised, threatened, 
or promised by any person in the executive civil service against 
or in favor of an . . . employee because of his political or 
religious opinions or affiliations ;" ^ and that "in making re- 
movals ... no discrimination shall be exercised for political 
or religious reasons." ^ 

It will be appreciated that these latter provisions, like those 
cited with reference to the removal of the members of the sev- 
eral commissions and boards by the President, are virtually 
unenforceable, since the reason for which a person is removed 
or dismissed in almost all cases is beyond the reach of any court 
or enforcing tribunal ; nor indeed has any method of enforce- 
ment been provided by rules other than investigation by the 
Civil Service Commission. The only type of provisions regard- 
ing removal which have other than a moral effect are those 
providing for a particular formality of procedure to be ob- 
served, or authorizing a reviewing body, as a court, to pass 
final judgment as to whether the reason alleged by the remov- 
ing authority in pursuance of such prescribed procedure, was 
actually in existence — the latter type of provision in effect sub- 
jecting the power of removal to the veto of the reviewing body. 
Neither type of provision has been adopted by Congress with 
reference to positions outside the competitive class. ^ 

Neither in the presidential positions nor in the non-presi- 
dential positions outside the competitive service does there ex- 
ist any effective legal limitation on the power to remove for 

embrace so obviously universally applicable a provision as this (as well as 
the remaining three of the eight provisions) in the general qualification 
referred to. 

' Rule I. 2. 

'Rule XII, 2. 

^ In 1912 Congress prescribed a procedure for removal of persons 
from the "Classified Civil Service," but this act has been construed as 
applying only to the competitive service. 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 93 

political reasons ; and in practice the injunctions against politi- 
cal removals just cited are virtually a dead letter as regards 
not a few non-presidential positions. In certain excepted 
classified positions, removals are regularly made for political 
reasons, and no attempt is made by the Civil Service Commis- 
sion to prevent them. 

With respect to the provisions bearing on the competitive 
service, it need only be said at this point ■^ that they require that 
the person whose removal is proposed be given notice in 
writing of the reasons for which such removal is proposed, and 
a reasonable time (in practice not less than three days) in which 
to answer such reasons in writing, and they require the whole 
proceeding to be made of record in the department and in the 
Civil Service Commission. Even with respect to the competi- 
tive classified service, therefore, the statute furnishes no actual 
safeguard against removal for political or other improper mo- 
tives. The real protection against such removal in the com- 
petitive service consists, of course, in the absence of incentive 
under ordinary conditions to make such removal, since the 
successor of the person removed cannot be selected at will by 
the removing officer but must be taken from those standing 
highest in the eligible register prepared by the Civil Service 
Commission. The same applies with greater or less force to 
all the other branches of the service to which formal methods 
of selection have been applied — the consular and diplomatic 
services, the Public Health Service, the presidential postmaster- 
ships, the unskilled labor service in the cities where selection 
is by competition. 

On the other hand, where selection is frankly political, any 
attempt to establish by law a legal protection against political 
removal (analogous to the traditional protection enjoyed by the 
British civil servant before the introduction of the merit sys- 
tem, above mentioned) would be putting the cart before the 
horse. Such a law, moreover, if at all observed, would saddle 
upon the service an employee who had not been required to 

^ These provisions are set out more fully in Chapter XV. 



94 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

demonstrate prior to appointment any qualification for the 
post. 

As applied then to positions to which selection is by formal 
methods, legal security against political removal is largely 
superfluous; as applied to positions filled by political appoint- 
ment it is illogical. Between these two extremes is found the 
class of positions to which selection is wholly in the discretion 
of the appointing officer, but in which the tradition of non- 
political merit selection is more or less firmly established. It 
is here that legal provision directed against removal for politi- 
cal reasons may be of value, in fortifying and sustaining the 
tradition of merit in selection. For not only may it actually 
restrain the hand of the administrative officer who may be 
tempted to remove a capable incumbent to make room for a 
political successor, but it may make it easier for the officer who 
seeks to uphold the tradition of selection for merit to obtain a 
capable non-political appointee. Only when there is adequate 
assurance against removal for political reasons can either the 
non-political permanent personnel or qualified non-political out- 
siders be induced to take interest in securing appointment to a 
position. The instances are numerous where the attempt, 
made in good faith by an administrative officer, to fill a given 
class of positions on a merit basis, by the promotion of em- 
ployees from permanent positions, has failed because the 
employees have been unwilling to take the risk of assuming 
positions which have traditionally been regularly vacated for 
political reasons. 

For these reasons, it seems desirable that the act of 1912, 
requiring a formal procedure in removal from the classified 
competitive service, should be extended to embrace also all non- 
competitive positions and all excepted positions, whether ex- 
cepted by the rules or by special statute. It is true that certain 
of these excepted positions have been filled by political ap- 
pointees ; but the theory of the rules and law is not that they 
should be so filled, and even if such an extension of the law of 
1 9 12 would afford protection at the present time to a certain 
portion of the employees in these classes who are not morally or 



THE LAW OF SELECTION AND TENURE 95 

in theory entitled to such protection, the benefits would out- 
weigh this drawback. 

The extension of such a protection to those "presidential" 
positions to which selection is traditionally based on merit 
presents much greater difficulty. Not only are the great ma- 
jority of the positions in this class (aside from the post- 
masters) frankly political, but it is the theory of the law that 
they should be so, and to attempt in any degree to correct the 
situation, while leaving all else unchanged, by introducing a 
legal protection against political removal, would be futile. 



/ 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EXTENSION OF FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 

In the preceding chapter the various laws and regulations 
designed to exclude political and other improper considerations 
from the selection and removal of the Federal personnel were 
reviewed. In the present chapter the attempt will be made to 
consider, in respect to those posts to which no formal method 
of selection has been applied, the extent to which selection 
actually is or should be controlled by politics, and where such 
control is improper, how it may be eliminated best. 

By confining this chapter to positions to which no formal 
methods of selection have been applied, it is not intended to 
imply that selection in the remaining areas of the service, where 
such methods have been applied, is entirely free from politics. 
In some cases this is doubtless far from the truth. Neverthe- 
less, the application of a formal system of selection to these 
positions gives full legal recognition to the principle of merit, 
and they fall clearly outside of the field which even the spoils- 
man may regard as legitimate area for political appointment. 
If in this area the merit principle is in fact violated for politi- 
cal reasons, what is needed is not a basic reform in principle 
but a revision in the details of the present practice. In the 
chapters devoted to the examination of these formal systems of 
selection, some of these matters are discussed in detail.^ 

For the purposes of this chapter the area of political ap- 
pointment and removal can most conveniently be discussed by 
considering first the departments at Washington, then the lo- 
cal offices and establishments, and finally the foreign service. 
Heads of Departments and Independent Establishments. — 
As is well known the heads of departments occupy the dual 

^ See Chapters IX and X. 

96- 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 97 

role of administrators and political advisors. Viewed as ad- 
ministrators much might be said in favor of their selection 
purely from the standpoint of capacity and the grant to them 
of permanency of tenure. As political advisors it is, how- 
ever, not only proper, but advisable, that they shall be chosen 
by each President from his political party and with reference 
to general political considerations. This conflict of considera- 
tions is met under the British political system by certain mem- 
bers of the ministry having positions without administrative 
portfolios and by the provision of permanent undersecretaries 
who have immediate charge of the administration of the sev- 
eral departments, who are looked upon as non-political officers 
and who have the same permanency of tenure of office as other 
administrative officers. There is no reason why a similar 
system should not be developed in this country. 

The position of heads of independent establishments and 
members of boards or committees representing the directing 
personnel of such establishments, has, however, a different 
.status in that such officers are neither members of the Presi- 
dent's Cabinet, nor strictly his political advisors. Moreover, in 
the more important of these establishments which have a board 
or commission form of organization, its members, with the 
exception of the Civil Service Commission, are appointed for 
terms of years. 

The terms of the members of these boards are so arranged 
that only one vacancy will arise in any one year and no vacancy 
at all in certain years, and in the case of the Federal Reserve 
Board a vacancy arises but once every two years. The result 
is that while the President selects the entire personnel of his 
Cabinet, he selects during his four-year term of office at most 
but four of the five members of the Federal Trade Commis- 
sion, not appointing a majority until his third year — and may 
select but two; he selects similarly but five of the seven mem- 
bers of the Shipping Board and may select but four ; he selects 
but two of the five appointive members of the Federal Reserve 
Board; and but five or six of the eleven members of the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission. 



98 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

It is evident from these provisions that the law constitutes 
that these positions shall be viewed as non-political. In re- 
spect to them it is thus desirable that permanency of tenure, to 
be secured through the reappointment of members at the ex- 
piration of their terms, should prevail, except where it is clearly 
evident that the public interests will be advanced by the ap- 
pointment of new members. 

Assistant Secretaries and Analogous Officers. — In each of 
the executive departments is found one or more chief assist- 
ants to the head of the department, variously designated as 
assistant secretary, undersecretary, etc. All of these are ap- 
pointed by the President and Senate, except in the cases of 
the assistant secretaries of Commerce and of Labor. These 
latter are appointed by the President alone, and are thus in 
the classified service ; their positions, however, are "excepted" 
under a general provision of the civil service rules, excepting 
from examination all positions to which appointment is made 
by the President alone. 

These officers are, with exceptions so rare as to be negligi- 
ble, political appointees. They regularly change with each 
change of administration. To this rule there have been occa- 
sional exceptions. One of the assistant secretaries of State 
has been retained through no less than nine administrations, 
covering six distinct changes in the political party in power in 
the White House, and a few cognate, though less marked, ex- 
ceptions may be found in the history of other departments. 
They are, however, too few to impair the truth of the general 
statement that the post of assistant secretary is a political one. 

The position of assistant secretary in our government is 
thus radically different from that of the undersecretary in the 
British Government, or the corresponding departmental officer 
in continental practice. There the undersecretary is the real 
administrative head of the department, permanent and non- 
political; he conducts the actual administration, while the po- 
litical minister or the secretary concerns himself only with the 
larger and more political aspects of the department's business. 
With us, the assistant secretary, being as much a political ap- 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 99 

pointee as is the secretary, is in no wise better qualified to direct 
the detailed administration of the department; and he thus be- 
comes a mere administrative assistant to the secretary. In sev- 
eral of the departments, notably in the Treasury, Justice, and 
Post Office Departments, there are several assistant secretaries, 
each in charge, under the head of the department, of a certain 
part of the department's work. 

The whole institution of the assistant secretary, as now 
found in some of the departments, might be subjected to criti- 
cism from the standpoint of correct organization ; for the pres- 
ent purpose, however, it is necessary to point out only that 
whatever the validity of the arguments advanced for the selec- 
tion of the secretaries upon a political and personal basis, they 
have no application whatever to the positions of assistant sec- 
retary. No valid reason can be advanced why all these posi- 
tions should not be filled purely on a merit basis, with the 
permanence of tenure which that basis implies. 

The barring of the assistant secretaryships of the depart- 
ments to the permanent personnel is particularly unfortunate. 
It is a type of position — one of the few classes of important 
positions — which a man or woman of native intelligence, ex- 
perienced in governmental business, but possessing no special 
technical equipment, is peculiarly able to fill. It is a goal which, 
while not of the loftiest, would be exceedingly attractive to the 
experienced clerk or minor executive, to whom the headship 
of a bureau, even where filled by merit, is barred by reason of 
his lack of technical qualifications. 

The steps which should be taken to place the position of 
the assistant secretary upon a non-political, permanent basis 
are substantially similar to those called for in the case of the 
bureau or service heads, and the two will accordingly be dis- 
cussed together after the facts relative to bureau heads have 
been reviewed. 

Heads of Bureaus and Services. — The heads of the several 
bureaus and services constituting the major primary units of 
organization of the executive departments, with comparatively 
few exceptions, are appointed by the President and confirmed 



loo THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

by the Senate.^ In a few of the bureaus there are found 
deputy chiefs or assistant directors. Generally speaking these 
officers are appointed in the same way as are their principals.^ 

Few of the independent establishments are organized in 
distinct bureaus or services. For the most part they are uni- 
functional and correspond in their organization to a single 
service of one of the executive departments, rather than to 
the department itself. 

For bureau heads, with the exception of five,^ the law 
provides an indefinite tenure, but despite the substantial 
uniformity of the legal provisions which thus control their 
appointment and tenure, diverse traditions have developed 
with respect to the several offices. Some are avowedly held to 
be proper fields for purely political appointments. In others, 
the head virtually holds during good behavior ; his removal by 
the President for purely political causes would be deemed a 
gross abuse of power. In still others tradition has not yet 
taken permanent form; a removal for purely political reasons 
would provoke adverse criticism from the opposite political 
party, but would not be regarded very seriously. 

^ The exceptions are the Commissioner of Lighthouses, who is ap- 
pointed by the President alone; the Chief of the Bureau of Investigation 
in the Department of Justice, appointed by the Attorney General ; the 
Director of the Reclamation Service, and the Director of the National 
Park Service, appointed by the Secretary of the Interior ; the Supervis- 
mg Architect of the Treasury, and the Director of the Bureau of Engrav- 
ing and Printing, appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury; and the 
heads of the several bureaus of the Department of State and of the 
Department of Agriculture (other than the Weather Bureau) who are 
appointed by the secretaries of those departments. 

^ The assistant chiefs of bureau, who are appointed by the President 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate are: Treasury Depart- 
ment, assistant treasurer and assistant deputy treasurer ; Bureau of In- 
ternal Revenue, deputy commissioners, five; Assistant Register of the 
Treasury; Assistant Commissioners of Patent Office, two; Assistant Com- 
missioner of the Office of Indian Affairs ; Assistant Commissioner^ of the 
General Land Office ; Deputy Commissioner of Pensions ; Depuliy Com- 
missioner of Fisheries ; assistant directors of the Bureau of Foreign and 
Domestic Commerce, two. 

^ The Comptroller of the Currency and the Director of the Mint are 
appointed for five years, the Director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
the Commissioner of Labor Statistics and the Purchasing Agent of the 
Post Office Department are appointed for four years. In the case of the 
Director of the Mint and the Comptroller of the Currency, the President is 
required, if he remove them, to communicate his reasons to the Senate; a 
provision not found in the case of any of the other bureau heads. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION loi 

While it is difficult to classify the presidential bureau head- 
ships with confidence on this basis, the following probably rep- 
resents substantially the existing situation : 

Purely Political Positions 

Department of the Treasury 

Comptroller of the Currency ^ 

Treasurer 

Commissioner of Internal Revenue 

Director of the Mint ^ 

Register of the Treasury 
Department of the Interior 

Commissioner, General Land Office 

Commissioner of Indian Affairs 

Commissioner of Pensions 

Commissioner of Patents 
Department of Labor 

Commissioner-General of Immigration 

Commissioner of Naturalization 
Independent Establishment 

Alien Property Custodian (appointed by President alone) 

Positions Held During Good Behavior 

Department of the Treasury 

Surgeon General, Public Health Service '' 

Captain Commandant, Coast Guard ^ 

Director of the Budget 
Department of the Interior 

Commissioner of Education 

Director of Geological Survey 

Director of Bureau of Mines 
Department of Agriculture 

Chief of Weather Bureau 
Department of Commerce 

Commissioner of Fisheries 

Director of Coast and Geodetic Survey ^ 

Director of Bureau of Standards 

Commissioner of Lighthouses (appointed by the President alone) 

Commissioner of Navigation 

Director of the Census 

Director, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce 

Supervising Inspector-General, Steamboat Inspection Service 

^ It is notable that the Comptroller of the Currency and the Director 
of the Mint, who by law enjoy fixed terms, are regularly displaced by a 
change of administration. 

'Appointed for four-year term. 



102 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Department of Labor 

Chief of Children's Bureau 

Commissioner of Labor Statistics ^ 

Director of Women's Bureau 
Independent Establishments 

Chief of Bureau of Efificiency (appointed by President alone) 

Director of the Veterans' Bureau 

Comptroller General ^ 

It will thus be seen that of the 33 "presidential" bureau 
headships listed, 12 are rated as purely political, 21 as wholly 
non-political. In the case of the 12 hsted as purely political, 
it cannot be said that there is any indication of a tendency 
towards the development of a tradition of permanence of non- 
political character. 

The offices of Comptroller General and Assistant Comp- 
troller General, created by the Budget and Accounting Act 
approved June 10, 1921, present a radical departure in pro- 
cedure relative to tenure and power of removal. These officers 
are appointed for a term of 15 years, by the President, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate. The law provides 
that these officers "may be removed at any time by joint reso- 
lution of Congress after notice and hearing, when, in the judg- 
ment of Congress, the Comptroller General or Assistant 
Comptroller General has become permanently incapacitated or 
has been inefficient, or guilty of neglect of duty, or of mal- 
feasance in office, or of any felony or conduct involving moral 
turpitude, and for no other cause and in no other manner 
except by impeachment." It provides also that the former 
shall not be eligible for reappointment and that when 
either of the officers attains the age of seventy, he shall 
be retired. 

These unusual provisions depriving the President of the 
power of removal are due to the fact that the Comptroller 
General is in effect the representative of Congress in auditing 
the accounts of the government and in investigating all mat- 
ters relating to the receipt, disbursement, and application of 

^Appointed for four-year term. 
^Appointed for fifteen-year term. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 103 

public funds. In order to make these officers independent of 
executive pressure the power of removal has been placed in 
Congress alone. The former office of Comptroller of the 
Treasury was filled by appointment by the President, who also 
had the power of removal as in the case of other executive 
officers. There is a story current to the effect that one Presi- 
dent was displeased with the decision of a Comptroller, and 
that he remarked that he could not change the decisions of 
the Comptroller but that he could change the Comptroller. 
Whether this story is true or not, it accurately represents the 
legal relation of the President and the Comptroller of the 
Treasury under the old law. In the case of the new office of 
Comptroller General Congress went further in the first bill 
creating that office and provided for the election of the Comp- 
troller General by Congress. This bill was vetoed by 
President Wilson on the groimd that it encroached on the 
constitutional prerogative of the President, by providing for 
the selection of an officer of the government by the legislative 
branch. The present law meets the constitutional objec- 
tion by placing the appointment of this officer in the hands 
of the President, but it also removes him from executive 
domination by placing the power of removal in the hands of 
Congress. 

There are several lines along which effort to secure the 
extension of the merit principle to the assistant secretaryships 
and to the bureau and service headships to which it does not yet 
apply may be directed. The obvious and direct way — what 
might be termed the frontal method of attack — consists in seek- 
ing the abolition in respect to all of these posts of the advice 
and consent of the Senate, thus placing them within the scope 
of the civil service law. Conjointly with this legislation it 
might be well to try to transfer the power of appointment of 
assistant secretaries and bureau chiefs from the President to 
the heads of the several departments. There has come to be a 
tradition or flavor of politics about presidential appointments 
O'f whatever kind; and this of itself constitutes something of a 
hindrance to the application of the merit principle to such 



I04 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

appointments, however sincerely attempted. The investment 
of the several secretaries with complete power of appointment 
of assistant secretaries and bureau or service chiefs, would 
serve to emphasize by statutory recognition, the purely admin- 
istrative character of these posts and the impropriety of ad- 
mitting any political considerations in the selection of their 
incumbents.^ 

The alternative line of attack is to attempt to secure by 
Presidential action alone the application of the merit principle 
to all the assistant secretaryships and to those of the bureau 
and service headships to which the principle has not yet been 
applied. 

In considering the relative possibilities offered by these two 
methods, it must always be remembered that, under the law 
of 1 87 1, as was pointed out in a preceding chapter, the Presi- 
dent has by statute, quite aside from and in addition to his 
constitutional discretion, as full and complete control over the 
selection of nominees for assistant secretaryships and bureau 
headships as he would have were those positions placed within 
the scope of the civil service law. There is no system of selec- 
tion or regulation which he might apply to these posts if 
brought under the civil service law by means of the legislation 
above outlined which may not with equal effect be applied by 
him under existing law. The sole difference will be that in 
the latter case the confirmation of the Senate will still be re- 
quired for all appointments made as a result of such system or 
regulation. Another point of difference is that if brought un- 
der the civil service law and selected by competitive examina- 
tion or by promotion from employees originally so selected, 
these officers would enjoy a greater nominal protection against 
removal. It is not believed, however, that this diiference 
would have any significance in the case of the posts in question. 

* Another detail of the legislative program would be the substitution of 
indefinite tenure for the five-j'ear term now fixed for the Comptroller of 
the Currency and the Director of the Mint. While indefinite tenure does 
not, as seen, prevent the post from being treated as a political one, a fixed 
term, especially so short a one, makes it almost impossible to have it treated 
as a non-political one. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 105 

Conversely, even if the legislation outlined were enacted, 
the cooperation of the President would have to be secured to 
make it effective ; for that legislation, it should be remembered, 
would not insure the assistant secretaries and heads of depart- 
ments entire freedom from political considerations, for the 
President could still place them in the excepted class (as he 
has done indeed with all positions to which appointment is by 
the President alone ).-^ Indeed, as was shown in the discussion 
of the legal bases of the federal personnel system, no mere legal 
change, within the limits of existing precedents, would insure 
the application of the merit system, except through the co- 
operation of the President. 

Consequently, the chief value which the enactment of the 
legislation suggested might have would not be in the change 
of the technical legal status of these positions but rather in 
the moral and practical effect of a positive declaration by Con- 
gress that these posts ought to be filled solely on the basis of 
merit. 

In any case the radical character of the legislative program 
outlined renders very slim the chance of its enactment in the 
near future. Since the enactment of the civil service law in 
1883, Congress has seldom taken action designed to extend the 
merit principle ; ^ on not a few occasions it has enacted ex- 
ceptions to the civil service law calculated to weaken and under- 
mine the principle. There seems little reason to hope for con- 
gressional assistance for any plan designed to oust the spoils 
system from these, its traditional strongholds. 

The practicability and value of an attempt to secure from 

* In the case of the Assistant Secretaries of Commerce and of Labor 
the statutes already vest appointment solely in the hands of the President, 
but these offices have been treated as on precisely the same footing as the 
other assistant secretaryships. Were all the assistant secretaryships on 
the statutory basis, however, the development of a merit tradition vi^ould be 
far easier. 

^ The only instances in which it has taken such action are the act of 
1889, providing for non-competitive examinations for entrance and promo- 
tion in the Public Health Service, possibly the act of 1906, arranging 
the consular service in grades and thereby facilitating the application of 
merit methods of selection to that service, and the act of May 22, 1917, 
providing for appointments of certain officers in the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey. 



io6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the President alone the extension of the merit principle to 
these posts depends much on the precise nature of the action 
which it is sought to have the President take. On the one 
hand, it might merely be urged upon a President, particularly 
an incoming President, that in making his nominations to the 
positions of assistant secretary and to those bureau headships 
now regarded as political he be guided solely by merit, extend- 
ing to these posts the tradition of non-political selection already 
established in the case of the technical bureau headships. The 
difficulty with this line of action, sound as is its aim, is that it 
involves no procedural or legal change in the method of selec- 
tion which may serve as a visible sign, and subsequently as a 
touchstone, of the actual establishment of the merit principle. 
This absence of concrete evidence that the merit principle 
actually governs is indeed a major weakness of the tradition 
of merit as now applied to the headships of the technical 
services.^ 

On the other hand, the attempt to secure action from the 
President may take for its program the promulgation by the 
President of regulations prescribing a formal procedure by 
which assistant secretaries and bureau heads are to be selected 
for nomination. It is believed that, almost regardless of the 
contents of such regulations, their promulgation would in 
effect place these posts irrevocably on a merit basis; that the 
"advice and consent of the Senate" would become as to these 
posts a mere formality. It is believed consequently that this 
line of attack is to be preferred to the legislative attack; that 
it will produce substantially equal results, and that it presents 
less difficulty and better chances of success. 

^A case in point arose in connection with the appointment in 1914 to 
the position of Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The 
appointee was attacked by the opposition party as wholly lacking in the 
necessary technical qualifications, but was defended by the administration 
as possessing in marked degree the type of lay executive ability and vigor 
particularly demanded at the time by the administrative problems confront- 
ing the service. The absence of any formalities in the procedure of 
selection which insured either that political considerations had been ex- 
cluded or that the President had acted upon non-political, technical advice 
made it impossible for an interested public to form any clear idea of the 
extent to which the appointment had actually been dictated by the needs 
of the service. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 107 

The most desirable and effective feature which should be in- 
corporated in those regulations (a feature which, as pointed 
out in a subsequent chapter, does not now have place in the civil 
service rules) would be a clear declaration of the principle that 
selection from these posts would be made from within the 
classified service, except where the President expressly certi- 
fied that such selection would not be in the best interests of 
the service. To this end the regulations might provide that on a 
vacancy occurring in any of these positions the head of the 
department should submit to the President the names of these 
persons in the service suitable for promotion to such vacancy, 
with recommendations ; or, in the event of there being no per- 
son deemed suitable, the names of the persons naturally in line 
for the position, with the reasons why they are regarded as 
unsuitable. 

The adoption of this principle would be the most desir- 
able method of abolishing purely political appointments not 
only because it represents the soundest practice on all general 
counts of selection from within, but because it would escape 
the difficult problem of applying to those higher posts any for- 
mal method of selection from outside the service. It needs no 
argument that the rigid procedure in selection now applied by 
the Civil Service Commission to the ordinary competitive posts 
is not applicable to these posts ; and in a subsequent chapter 
possible modifications of that procedure to make it suitable to 
these posts is discussed. Nevertheless, despite such modifica- 
tions, the filling of these posts from without the service by a 
method that will command public confidence must always re- 
main difficult and should be resorted to only when indisputably 
demanded by the good of the service.^ 

In one case such provision has been written into the law — 
that of the Director of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.^ For 
many years this officer had been appointed by the President, 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate without legal 

^ See Chapter XI. 

* Designation changed from Superintendent to Director by Act of 
June 5, 1920 (41 Stat. 929). 



io8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

restrictions, but the act of June 4, 1920 (41 Stat., 825) pro- 
vides that "he shall be appointed by the President, by and with 
the advice and consent of the Senate from the list of com- 
missioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey not below 
the rank of commander for a term of four years, and may be 
reappointed for further periods of four years each." For the 
fiscal year 1922 provision is made for nine officers, exclusive 
of the director, of the rank of commander and higher. 

The regulations of the Public Health Service provide that 
the Surgeon General shall be selected from the commissioned 
medical officers of the Service above the grade of passed 
assistant surgeon. As these regulations are promulgated by 
the President he can amend or ignore them. This regulation 
is evidently based on the act of January 4, 1889 (25 Stat. 
639), which provides that no person shall be appointed a medi- 
cal officer of the service until after he has passed an examina- 
tion and that appointment shall be made only to the lowest 
grade in the service — that of assistant surgeon. No mention 
is made in this act of the Surgeon General whose appointment 
is provided for by the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 371, 
377). In 191 1, however, the Acting Attorney General held 
that the "law does not restrict the President in selecting a 
surgeon general of the Public Health and Marine Hospital 
Service to the list of commissioned officers in the medical 
corps of the service." ^ The essential parts of the opinion of 
the Attorney General are as follows : 

There was at that time [January 4, 1889] no specific pro- 
vision of law at all for the appointment or promotion of any 
officer in that service except the Supervising Surgeon General. 
By the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 371, 377) the latter 
officer was to be appointed by the President^ by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate; and the class from which he 
should be selected was not restricted in any respect. The 
appointment and promotion of the medical officers, as dis- 
tinguished from the Supervising Surgeon General, were 
governed merely by the Regulations of the Marine Hospital 

^29 Op. Att. Gen., pp. 287-293. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 109 

Service for 1879, according to which the "medical officers" in 
the "service" were to be appointed by the Secretary of the 
Treasury, upon the recommendation of the Supervising Sur- 
geon General (par. 23). . . . 

The regulations evidently made a clear-cut distinction be- 
tween the Supervising Surgeon General — who is appointed 
by the President from any class of surgeons and is not neces- 
sarily selected from the service nor subject to an examination 
— and the "medical officers" who are not regularly commis- 
sioned who, after an original appointment to the grade of 
assistant surgeon, are promoted from that grade to the grade 
of surgeon by regular steps. 

This preexisting, well-established distinction between the 
Supervising Surgeon General and "the medical officers" as to 
the mode of appointment and promotion is vital to a correct 
construction of the act of 1889, because it appears that that 
act was passed entirely at the instance of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and of the Supervising Surgeons General of the 
Marine Hospital Service, in order to put into the form of 
specific provisions of law the regulations of 1879. 

It thus seems clear that the general purpose of the act of 
1889 was not to change the method of appointing the Super- 
vising Surgeon General, nor to disturb the distinction recog- 
nized by the regulations of 1879 between that officer and the 
"medical officers" of the service, but merely to legalize the 
position of the latter, to raise them to the grade of regularly 
commissioned officers, and to fix in the law the regulations as 
to their promotion. 

Since this opinion was rendered there has been no legisla- 
tion affecting the conclusions in one direction or another. As 
a matter of fact all the Surgeons General of the Public Health 
Service, with the exception of the first one, appointed in 1871, 
have been selected from the commissioned medical officers of 
the service. 

As has been indicated, were the merit principle given formal 
recognition in the case of these posts by either the setting up 
of formal methods of selection or the limitation of selection 
to those already in the service, it would become a matter of 
small importance whether the advice and consent of the Sen- 
ate persisted or not. It is well established that where the merit 



no THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

principle has received formal recognition in the selection of 
nominees to "presidential" positions, as it has in the case of 
consuls, diplomatic secretaries, commissioned officers of the 
Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
and ''presidential" postmasterships — in all except the Public 
Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, moreover, 
the system of selection having been set up solely by order of 
the President, independently of statute — the confirmation of 
the Senate has become a perfunctory matter, just as it has in 
all ordinary cases, in the selection of army and navy officers. 
The abolition of the advice and the consent of the Senate for 
these posts, v^hich was proposed as an item in a possible legis- 
lative program under this head, would be of value chiefly as 
evidencing the recognition of the merit principle by Congress. 
Were that principle established by either of the other methods 
mentioned (the advice and consent of the Senate still persist- 
ing), there would be but little to be gained by an abolition of 
the advice and consent of the Senate, wholly desirable as such 
a step would be merely in principle. 

Other Superior Personnel at Washington. — The superior 
personnel at Washington below the rank of chief or assistant 
chief of a bureau includes but few "Presidential" positions, 
aside from the commissioned officers of the Public Health 
Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey to whose special 
legal position attention has already been called.^ 

Solicitors of the Departments. — The chief group of such 
subordinate "presidential" officers is made up of departmental ^ 
"solicitors." The solicitors for the Post Office and Navy 
Departments are appointed by the heads of departments and 
there is no reason why solicitors for other departments should 
be "presidential" appointees. In fact the corresponding offi- 
cers of the independent establishments are not so appointed. 

^ The staff of the Hygienic Laboratory conducted by the Public Health 
Service and other scientific employees are in a large part in the com- 
petitive service, their positions not being regarded as those of "medical 
officers" of the Public Health Service. 

^ There is also a solicitor for the Bureau of Internal Revenue whg 
falls in the same class. 



Ml 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION iii 

Because of their small number, however, it will be next to im- 
possible to secure the application of formal methods to their 
selection, as long as they remain in the presidential class. The 
abolition of the "presidential" status of these officers, and their 
appointment by the heads of the several departments, is an 
item in the program of federal personnel reform whose pro- 
priety is hardly open to argument.^ 

Auditors of the Departments. — The same is true of the six 
auditors of the Departments. Their duties are wholly admin- 
istrative, and long familiarity with government practice is in- 
dispensable to efficiency in these posts. Unquestionably the 
method of "presidential" appointment, which has resulted in 
the changing of the personnel of these posts with almost every 
changing administration, has failed to give satisfaction. 

As long ago as 19 lo the Secretary of the Treasury recom- 
mended that, instead of the President and Senate, he be given 
the power to appoint these officers ; ^ and in the budget act, 
which establishes the office of Comptroller General, they are 
abolished altogether. That act, however, provides that the 
duties of the Auditor for the Post-Office Department shall be 
performed by the Comptroller of the Bureau of Accounts of 
the Post-Office Department, who is appointed by the President, 
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission. — A 
presidential appointee who stands somewhat in a class by him- 
self is the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission. 
The law does not expressly require that he be appointed by 
the President and confirmed by the Senate, but, as it makes no 
other provision for such appointment, it has been held that, 

_ ^ In 1912 there was some discussion in the departments of the desira- 
bility of placing the position of solicitor on a merit basis by taking it out 
of the presidential class, but no action was taken (see Thirtieth Report of 
the United States Civil Service Commission (1912), p. 10). Doubtless the 
suspicion which would have attached to such action at that time, of its 
being an attempt to "cover in" the then political incumbents — a difficulty 
always found in attempts to convert positions from a spoils to a merit 
basis, but particularly so when an election is impending — may have had 
something to do with this. 

* Annual Report by the Secretary of the Treasury for the year ended 
June 30, 1910, p. 13. 



112 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

since the chief examiner is an officer, he is to be appointed by 
the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.^ 

This anomalous position of the Chief Examiner is not 
based on reason. He is a technical advisor and officer of the 
Commission, and if appointment to any position in the service 
should be utterly removed from any possibility of political con- 
sideration, it should be his. In point of fact no suggestion has 
ever been made that any of the chief examiners have been ap- 
pointed on any considerations other than their merit. Never- 
theless, the present method of appointment not only deprives 
the position of such protection against removal as is afforded 
classified, competitive positions, namely, the requirement of 
charges, opportunity to answer, etc., but it carries with it the 
possibility that at some future time the appointment of a chief 
examiner may be affected, in a measure, by political considera- 
tions. The point is well illustrated by the fact that, on the 
forced resignation in 19 19 of one of the Civil Service Com- 
missioners, he made a public statement to the effect that "a. 
short time ago the Commission unanimously recommended that 
the President appoint as Chief Examiner an employee of the 
Commission who is far better qualified for this position than 
any other person of whom the Commission has knowledge, but 
the Postmaster General desired that the position be filled by 
another person of his own selection." Were appointment 
vested completely in the hands of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion, and were that Commission, as elsewhere urged, com- 
pletely removed from the possibility of pressure by the ad- 
ministration, the selection of the Chief Examiner of the Com- 
mission could not be affected by any such considerations as 
have been suggested. 

The remaining presidential appointees at Washington ^ are 
of minor importance, though in each case they are purely ad- 

^ Opinion of the Attorney General, May 26, 1886, 18 Op., 4, 11. 

''These officers are: the purchasing agent of the Post Office Depart- 
ment, the examiners-in-chief of the Patent Office, and the recorder of the 
General Land Office. In any general revision of the law they should un- 
doubtedly be placed in the classified service. The tradition of merit 
appointment of the examiners-in-chief of the Patent Office now^ appears to 
be well established. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 113 

ministrative officers and no justification exists for their political 
appointment, which is now the general though not invariable 
rule, and the danger of which is in any case always present. 

Smithsonian Institution and National Home for Dis- 
abled Volunteer Soldiers. — The appointment of the execu- 
tive heads of the Smithsonian Institution and of the National 
Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers differs from that o£ 
any other executive offices of the government in that it is 
vested in boards composed in part of ex officio members and 
in part of members elected by Congress. The Secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution is elected by the Board of Regents, 
which is composed of the Vice President, the Chief Justice, 
three members of the Senate appointed by the President of 
the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, 
appointed by the Speaker, and six other persons elected by 
joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives. 
Of the six members elected by joint resolution two must be 
residents of the District of Columbia; no two of the remain- 
ing four can be elected from the same state. Members of 
the House of Representatives serve for two years, members 
of the Senate during the term for which they hold without 
reelection their office as Senators. The term of office of the 
elected members is six years. 

The Board of Managers of the National Home for Dis- 
abled Volunteer Soldiers consists of the President, the Secre- 
tary of War, the Chief Justice and seven members elected by 
joint resolution of Congress. The Managers elect from their 
own number a president who is the chief executive officer oi 
the board. This organization, however, is a field service and 
has no personnel in Washington. 

Subordinate Personnel at Washington. — With the excep- 
tion of the few presidential positions which have just been 
reviewed all positions at Washington below the grade of bureau 
head or assistant chief are appointed by the head of the de- 
partment or establishment. All these positions above the labor 
class are, therefore, in the competitive classified service unless 
specifically excepted by statute or by civil service rule. 



114 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Legal Employees. — The most important group of "classi- 
fied" positions in Washington now exempted from competi- 
tion by the civil service rules is the legal service, centering 
particularly, of course, in the Department of Justice. The 
political appointment of several departmental solicitors, who 
are the chief legal officers outside the Department of Justice, 
has already been mentioned. These officers are presidential 
appointees. By the civil service rules, however, substantially 
all the remaining legal positions in the Government, except in 
the lowest grade, that known as "law clerk," are also ex- 
cepted from competition. By the rules all "attorneys, assistant 
attorneys, and special assistant attorneys" in all departments 
are excepted from competition (Schedule A of the Civil Service 
Rules, I, 4). In the Department of Justice all "examiners" 
and "all positions and appointments deemed by the Attorney 
General to be legal in their character and which relate to 
temporary service or which grow out of appropriation acts 
committing to the Attorney General the execution of some pur- 
pose of the law and the expenditure of funds therefor but not 
creating specific positions," are also excepted (Schedule A of 
the Civil Service Rules, VI, 3, 5). In addition, there are 
various other exceptions under the several departments, which 
in some cases might seem to be covered by the general excep- 
tion of all attorneys, assistant attorneys, and special assistant 
attorneys, but which apparently have been specifically listed 
out of an abundance of caution.^ Finally under the statutory 
exceptions to competition, extended to nearly all the inde- 
pendent boards and commissioners in respect to their technical 
personnel, the legal employees of these bodies are generally 
appointed without competition. 

The net result, as already stated, is that substantially the 
whole legal service above the lowest grade is excepted from 
competition except where the head of the service has chosen 

^ These exceptions are as follows : one law officer in the Bureau of 
Insular Affairs, War Department; officers to aid in important draft wor'k, 
and assistant solicitors in the Department of State; and the chief law 
officer of the Reclamation Service. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 115 

to organize the legal positions on a competitive basis by giv- 
ing to them titles which would take them out of the exceptions 
provided by the rules.^ These positions are filled sometimes 
purely on political grounds ; sometimes purely on the score of 
merit (as was the case when the Department of Justice some 
years ago conducted an examination, more or less competitive, 
for filling vacancies in the lowest grade, that of assistant at- 
torney) and sometimes by a combination of both considera- 
tions. Occasionally an employee who has entered by the 
competitive route and has served as law clerk is promoted; 
and in a few instances such employees have risen very high in 
the service. The whole system is thus such a compound of 
political considerations and merit that historical research would 
be necessary to determine the factors actually behind the se- 
lection of any particular individual. The extent to which re- 
movals are made for political reasons is again similarly 
irregular. 

That no sufficient reason exists for the continuance of this 
situation in the legal service is obvious. That service is purely 
technical. Only technical excellence is required of its mem- 
bers. The whole service should be placed squarely upon a basis 
of merit. The political tinge which the legal service of the 
government now has is no more appropriate to it than would 
a similar tinge be to the engineering or the medical service. 
The recommendation for the competitive classification of all 
positions of attorney and assistant attorney now excepted has 
had the endorsement of at least one of the attorneys-general, 
Charles J. Bonaparte.^ The absurdity of the current situa- 

* Thus in the expansion of the Internal Revenue Bureau, as the result 
of the war revenue acts, the need arose for a large expansion of the legal 
force of that bureau. A large number of appointments to this bureau were 
recently made under the title of "Special assistant, legal unit," and are 
consequently made by competitive examination. Had the Commissioner of 
Internal Revenue chosen to designate these positions "attorney" or "as- 
sistant attorney" they would have been excepted from examination. 

^ Annual report of the Attorney General, 1912, p. 8. The entire state- 
ment of Mr. Bonaparte merits reproduction. "With a view to the estab- 
lishment of a merit system for the appointment of attorneys and assistant 
attorneys in the department similar to that governing the classified civil 
service, during the last fiscal year I made the experiment of filling two or 
three positions in the following manner: 



ii6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tion in this level of the legal service is emphasized by the fact 
that certain of the positions of law clerk — a competitive classi- 
fied position — enjoy a salary as high as $3,000 while certain 
of the assistant attorneys who are in the excepted class receive 
only $2,500. 

Employees of Certain Boards and Commissions. — A 
second major class of positions in the federal service at Wash- 
ington that may be filled through political influence are those 
placed outside the provisions of the civil service law by special 
statute. These embrace all the employees of the Federal Re- 
serve Board and of the Federal Farm Loan Board and the secre- 
taries, technical and "expert" employees of the Federal Trade 
Commission, the Shipping Board, the Veterans' Bureau, 
and the Tariff Commission. It is perhaps true that the em- 
ployees selected by these bodies under the authority of these 
statutes without reference to the civil service law or rules, and 
indeed without any formalized system of selection in most 

Applications were invited from all aspirants to appointment, especially 
from the younger graduates of the leading law schools ; the territory se- 
lected for the experiment being that within reasonable reach of Washing- 
ton. Notwithstanding this limitation of the field, and the short time given 
for advertisement, 65 candidates presented themselves, among them a con- 
siderable number of the m.ost promising of the recent graduates of law 
schools. 

Their qualifications were carefully investigated by a committee con- 
sisting of two attorneys of this department familiar with the particular 
duties attached to the positions to be filled, and two officers of the Civil 
Service Commission (the chief examiner and the law examiner) detailed 
by the courtesy of that commission to cooperate in the experiment. This 
committee held no formal written examination, but investigated the records 
of the applicants, corresponded with the persons to whom they had re- 
ferred, studied samples of legal briefs and law memoranda previously 
written by them, and held personal conferences with such as were found 
to be most promising. As a result of this investigation, the committee 
submitted to me the names of the four applicants who they considered 
best suited to meet the requirements of the vacant positions. I appointed 
the first two on this list, one of them a recent graduate of high standing 
of the Harvard Law School and the other a recent graduate of like high 
standing of the Columbia Law School. I have recently filled another minor 
attorneyship by appointing the third of the four applicants so selected and 
recommended. 

These appointees have proved so satisfactory in their departmental 
work as to convince me that such a method of selection is not only prac- 
ticable and convenient, but that it would greatly strengthen the legal force 
of the department. , , . , . , 

I therefore recommend the adoption of this method of selecting the 
attorneys and assistant attorneys, as a permanent policy, by the classifying 
of these positions as competitive under the civil service rules." 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 117 

cases, are in most cases as competent and capable as any who 
would have been selected through the ordinary competitive 
methods. Nevertheless the absence of those methods furnishes 
an opening for the entrance of political considerations ; and 
here and there they do enter unquestionably. The abuse is minor, 
but it is still an abuse and it has always latent in it large 
powers of growth should a different tradition develop in any 
of these bodies. Moreover, even when the employee selected 
is wholly competent and has been selected perhaps wholly with- 
out reference to political considerations, the fact that there has 
been no open competition or even invitation of applications 
with respect to the position throws an atmosphere of doubt and 
suspicion over the whole proceeding. By so much it weakens 
the morale of the personnel as a whole and in particular of 
those employees in the competitive classified service who would 
be eligible for transfer or promotion to the positions thus in- 
formally filled were they on the regular competitive classified 
basis. 

Private Secretaries and Confidential Clerks. — Another 
group of positions in Washington, much smaller than either of 
those already covered, in the selection for which politics plays 
a greater or less part, is that of so-called private secretaries 
or confidential clerks to the heads of departments and bureaus, 
who are excepted by the civil service rules. ^ Unimportant 
numerically as this group of positions is, the opportunity af- 

^ The rule provided for the exception in all executive departments of 
two private secretaries or confidential clerks to the head of the department 
and in addition the Secretary of the Interior has an "assistant" who- is 
excepted. The rules also provide for "one private secretary" or "confiden- 
tial clerk" to each of the heads of bureaus appointed by the President in 
the executive departments, though it is not apparent why the fact that 
the bureau head is appointed by the President rather than by the head of 
a department should make any difference in respect to the need for a 
"private secretary" or "confidential clerk." Similarly, the purchasing 
agent of the Post Office Department is allowed an excepted private secre- 
tary by the rules, apparently for no better reason than he, too, is a presi- 
dential appointee. Private secretaries are also allowed to the Public 
Printer and to the Chief of the Bureau of Efficiency. The provision of 
excepted private secretaries to the heads of the several independent estab- 
lishments other than the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Civil 
Service Commission is effected by the use of the statutory exception from 
competition applicable to those bodies. 



ii8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

forded for the entrance of political considerations is a viola- 
tion of principle and should be eliminated by placing these posi- 
tions in the competitive classified service. These positions 
are, of course, no more confidential than a host of other posi- 
tions which are in the competitive classified service. The in- 
clusion of the positions under discussion in that service need 
not limit materially the ability of the head of the department 
or bureau to select a secretary personally acceptable as the large 
number of available employees in the department or bureau 
among whom selection may be made offers an ample opportun- 
ity under this head. 

Cognate to the positions of private secretary, secretary, and 
confidential clerk are those of "confidential inspectors" and 
"special agents." These are now found only in the Depart- 
ment of the Interior and in the Department of Justice. In the 
Department of the Interior exception is made of "inspectors 
whose duties are of a confidential nature" in the office of the 
Secretary and of the six "special agents" in the General Land 
Office to investigate fraudulent entries and other matters of 
a criminal nature (Schedule A, VII, ii); while in the De- 
partment of Justice all operatives of the so-called Division of 
Investigation are excepted under the general exception above 
cited in connection with the legal service of "positions and 
appointments deemed by the Attorney General to be . . . con- 
fidential in their character and which relate to temporary 
service, or which grow out of appropriation acts committing 
to the Attorney General the execution of some purpose of the 
law and the expenditure of the funds therefor but not creat- 
ing specific positions," all of the funds for this division being 
regularly appropriated in this manner. 

The position of "detective" or "operative" is not indeed 
one which at first blush seems readily susceptible of being 
filled by competitive examination, and indeed it is of all posi- 
tions one to the application of which the competitive method 
is perhaps least appropriate. Nevertheless, it does not follow 
that positions of this character cannot be filled other than by 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 119 

designation of persons outside the service. In a service as 
large as the federal service it is always possible to find within 
the competitive service a sufficient number of persons capable 
of filling positions of this character to complete satisfaction. 

In this connection it is not without interest that the entire 
detective force of the New York Police Department, admittedly- 
one of the most efficient detective forces in the world, is en- 
tirely recruited by the detail to the detective bureau of patrol- 
men who show aptitude for the work. Yet the original ex- 
amination by which patrolmen are secured is solely directed to 
ascertaining the physical qualifications of the candidate and his 
possession of even less than the somewhat limited scholastic ac- 
quirements supposed to result from a common school education. 
That it would be possible to recruit an equally efficient force 
from among the large and varied range of the federal service 
can hardly be questioned. 

Even if, as is perhaps substantially the case at the present 
time in the Department of Justice, the force is selected in fact 
for the most part on a merit basis, its removal from the ex- 
cepted class is particularly desirable. The absence of any for- 
mal requirement of merit or any formal system of selection 
opens wide the door for political influence and occasionally, if 
not more frequently, a political appointment is bound to be 
made. Yet the service is one which it is obviously peculiarly 
desirable to keep entirely divorced from politics. 

The remaining exceptions to competition in the depart- 
mental service are of a special character which hardly warrant 
discussion, though in practically no case is there any good 
reason why exception should be made.^ 

* These positions are : one specialist in higher education in the Bureau 
of Education (See Schedule A, VIII, 24) ; one inspecting engineer and 
inspectors in the purchasing department of the Panama Canal (Schedule A, 
X, 2) ; and the director of the valuation division in the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission and his chief assistants, two ; five experts to be mem- 
bers of an advisory board; five persons of a board of engineers; one 
supervisor of land appraisals; and one chief accountant (Schedule A, XII, 
I, 5). This list, of course, does not include a few minor officers, the 
reason for the exception of which is that they involve only temporary or 
occasional service or that the salary is too low to secure competition. 
These have all been mentioned in the preceding chapter. 



I20 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

With the exceptions just reviewed all the positions at Wash- 
ington below that of chief or assistant chief of a bureau are 
on a competitive basis/ those above the grade of laborer being 
in the classified competitive service and those of that grade 
being embraced in the competitive labor regulations of No- 
vember 15, 1904. 

Field Service; Chief Officers. — Passing to the field service, 
it should be noted first that the field organizations maintained 
for the purposes of research and survey by the several scientific 
bureaus of the government are treated, from the standpoint 
of appointment, in the same way as are the personnel perma- 
nently located in Washington. The officers in charge of local 
offices and stations in one of these services, like the officers of 
corresponding rank and responsibility in the service at Wash- 
ington, are, therefore, in the competitive service. In the perma- 
nent local offices and establishments the chief officers are in 
most cases appointed by the President with the advice and 
consent of the Senate. There are, however, important, excep- 
tions to this rule. It will be well for purposes of future ref- 
erence to list here all the classes of local establishments and 
offices of the government and the titles of their chief officers, 
grouping them accordingly as the appointment of such chief of- 
ficers rests with the President and Senate or with the head of de- 
partment. 

I. Chief Local Officers Appointed by President with Advice 
AND Consent of the Senate 
^Treasury Department 
Mints 

Assay Service — Superintendents, Assayers, Melters and Re- 
finers, Coiners 
Internal Revenue Service — Collectors 
Customs Service — Collectors, Naval Officers, Appraisers 
Department of Justice 
District Attorneys 
Marshals 
Department of the Interior 

Public Lands Service — Registers, Receivers, Surveyors Gen- 
eral 

*A few positions are on a non-competitive basis. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 121 

Department of Commerce 

Steamboat Inspection Service — Supervising Inspectors 
Post Office Department 

First, Second, and Third Class Postmasters ^ 
Department of Labor 

Immigration Service — Commissioners of Immigration 
II. Chief Local Officers Appointed by the Heads of Depart- 
ments: 
Treasury Department 

Office of Comptroller of Currency — Chief National Bank 
Examiners 
Department of Justice 

Wardens of Penitentiaries 
Post Office Department 

Fourth-class Postmasters ^ 
Department of the Interior 

Reclamation Service — Project Managers 

Indian Service — Superintendent of Schools and Reservations 

National Park Service — Superintendents 
Department of Agriculture 

Forest Service — Foresters (in charge of the several for- 
ests) 
Department of Commerce 

Shipping Commissioners 
Department of Labor 

Naturalization Service — Chief Examiners 
Civil Service Commission 

Secretaries of District Offices 

General Conditions. — The total lack of principle which 
characterizes this classification of the local officers with re- 
spect to their method of appointment is explainable largely on 
historical grounds. Most of the services in which the appoint- 
ment of local offices is by the President subject to confirmation 
by the Senate run back many decades; while those in which 
appointment is by the head of department are, in almost every 
case, of comparatively recent origin. The appointment of 
local officers by the President and the Senate is thus a venerable 

^ Many of the second and all of the third class postmasters are not in 
any real sense "officers" at all, being in fact merely clerks in charge of 
small offices. They are included here, however, because it has been cus- 
tomary to treat them in law in the same manner as the postmasters in 
charge of the post offices in the large cities. 

^ As explained in connection with the preceding list, fourth class post- 
masters are not, properly considered, "officer^," 



122 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

historic institution, which Congress itself now tends to aban- 
don or at least to keep within its present limits. 

It should further be said that the newer services in ques- 
tion are in nearly every case technical in character, while the 
long established services are administrative, that is, charged 
with the enforcement of law. The distinction is by no means 
so clear cut or so consistently adhered to that any justification 
of the difference in appointing method could properly be based 
upon it. 

With the exception of the eleven supervising inspectors of 
the Steamboat Inspection Service and of certain classes of 
vacancies in the position of postmaster, the "presidential" po- 
sitions in question are filled invariably on political grounds, and 
are invariably vacated on or before the expiration of the 
statutory term if there has been a change of administration.^ 
As is common knowledge, nominations to these positions in 
reality are normally made in the first instance not by the 
President, but by the Senators of the state in which the 
vacancy exists, where those Senators are of the same political 
party as the President; and by the party leaders of the Presi- 
dent's party in the State, should the Senators from the state 
in question be of the opposing political faith. ^ The appointees 
are almost without exception persons who have rendered politi- 
cal service to their party; only in the rarest cases have they 
been selected from within the service, and when so selected 

^ In 1907 the Civil Service Commission stated that "the average tenure 
of collector of customs and other presidential officers is gradually increas- 
ing," and it regarded this as "probably due to the policy of reappointing 
efficient incumbents" (Tw^enty-seventh Report of the United States Civil 
Service Commission (1907), p. 3). Since at the time the Commission 
wrote the Republican party had been in office continuously for ten years, 
whereas during the twelve years immediately preceding 1897 neither party 
had been in power longer than four years at one time, the question arises 
whether the "gradual increase" in the tenure of presidential officers ob- 
servable in 1907 was ever "probably" due to "the policy of reappointing 
efficient incumbents." At any rate a computation made in 1917, for exam- 
ple, after the Democratic party Iiad been in office four years, would have 
shown an astounding and by no means gradual decrease in the average 
tenure of presidential officers. 

^Occasionally, a Senator or party leader, fearful of offending local 
sentiment by the recommendation of the candidate of one rather than 
another of the contending local factions, has held a popular election to 
obtain the consensus of local preference. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 123 

it has been only when their political activity has been con- 
spicuous.^ 

In all the list of local "presidential" officers, there is none 
which could not be filled with thorough satisfaction on a wholly 
non-political basis of merit. In no single one of the cases 
listed do the requirements of good administration call for any 
exception whatever to the normal processes of competition. 
The remo"val of these positions, without exception, from the 
influence of politics and personal favoritism would improve the 
administration of the service and would exert a powerful influ- 
ence for good on the political life of the country. Apart from 
the question of securing more competent officers the difficulty of 
recruiting and retaining a capable subordinate personnel, when 
no opportunity exists for advancement to the principal posi- 
tions, is obvious and well-recognized; and it has greater im- 
portance in connection with the smaller local offices where 
even the chief position is within striking distance of the average 
employee, than it has in the large departmental and bureau 
organizations at Washington. Of the political evils which re- 
sult from this political selection of the heads of the local offices, 
it is unnecessary here to speak. All the well worn and well 
proved contentions of the civil service reformer have their full 
application here. The complete removal of all local federal 
offices from partisan control would exert a powerful cleansing 
effect upon the machinery of both the major political parties. 
The Four-year Term: Its History and Disadvantages. — 
The four-year term is an institution which has served power- 
fully to fortify the system of political selection of local officers 
and to make difficult any reform in the direction of placing 
these posts upon a basis of merit. The tradition of the four- 
year term for local officers goes back to the very beginning 
of the government. In the original judiciary act it was pro- 
vided ^ that marshals should be appointed for a four-year term. 

^ The increasing severity of the civil service rules aimed at political 
activity on the part of classified employees has now made it virtually 
impossible for such an employee to render the political service necessary 
to entitle him to presidential appointment. 

*Act of September 24, 1789. 



124 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

For over a quarter of a century these remained, however, the 
only local officers of the United States having a definite term, 
but in 1820 it was enacted that the several collectors and sur- 
veyors of customs, the so-called naval officers at the several 
custom houses, the district attorneys, and the registers and 
receivers of land offices should likewise hold for a four-year 
term. In 1851, the same principle was apphed to the offices 
of Indian agent and Indian superintendent; but when the 
office of Collector of Internal Revenue was established in 
1862, no fixed term was provided. While this may have re- 
flected at the time a disposition on the part of Congress to 
abandon the fixed term for local officers, such an attitude did 
not long persist. In 1872 postmasters who had hitherto been 
appointed in every case for an indefinite term were classified 
into four classes, and all except those in the lowest class, that 
is all where office receipts amounted to as much as $1,900, were 
thereafter to be appointed for four years. This was the most 
sweeping and the most indefensible extension of the four-year 
term ever made by Congress. It was followed by one other 
extension — that of 1894 providing a four-year term for the 
commissioners of immigration at the several ports. At the 
present time, therefore, the only important local presidential 
officers who do not hold for a four-year term are the collectors 
of internal revenue. 

Clearly, no lasting progress can be made towards putting 
these local offices upon a basis of merit until the fixed term is 
abolished. Even if a merit system of selection be set up for 
appointment to these positions, their character as permanent, 
non-political posts will never become irrevocably established 
so long as their incumbents are required to seek reappointment, 
or even to face the possibility of non-renewal of appointment, 
every four years. The abolition of the four-year term of local 
officers, even if unaccompanied by any change in the method 
of their selection, is thus an important item in the immediate 
legislative program of personnel reform. 

Action Required to Put Field Service on a Merit Basis. — 
With the four-year term abolished, the way would be clear for 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTIUN 125 

a complete conversion of these local offices to a merit basis. 
Such a change could be made, as in the case of other "presi- 
dential" offices, solely by executive order. Reliance on mere 
executive order, rather than on statutory classification is, in 
the case of local officers, open to several minor objections which 
do not exist in the case of the heads of bureaus and the assist- 
ant secretaries. In the first place, in legislation regarding 
personnel, distinction is naturally made in numerous cases be- 
tween those employees who are subject to the civil service law 
and those not so subject. If local officers are to be in reality 
under the merit system, they should obviously be included in 
legislation intended to apply to the employees under that sys- 
tem. Perhaps the most serious objection to the introduction of 
the merit system in local offices merely by means of executive 
order is, however, that it will not enlist public confidence in 
the same degree that will outright classification under the civil 
service law. 

The legislative program for the placing of local officers 
upon a merit basis should also embrace the abolition of the local 
residence requirement which now obtains in the case of col- 
lectors of internal revenue ^ and postmasters.^ These, contrary 
to popular impression, are the only local offices for which local 
residence is required by law. In all other local offices, it is 
tradition alone which demands that appointment be restricted 
to local residents. This tradition, of course, is closely bound 
up with the system of political appointment to these offices, 
and no doubt will readily be broken down, so far as adminis- 
trative needs make it desirable, once selection by merit, and 
more particularly promotion from within the service, has estab- 
lished itself. 

The legislative program here urged was first brought 
before Congress officially by President Taft. In a message 
to Congress in 19 10 he urged that all local officers be placed 
upon a merit basis, through the abolition of the four-year term, 

* Revised Statutes, Sec. 3142. 
^Revised Statutes, Sec. 3831. 



126 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

where it exists, and of senatorial confirmation; and this rec- 
ommendation he reiterated in his messages of 191 1 and 1912. 
In line with these recommendations bills were at the time in- 
troduced into Congress, but neither the messages nor the bills 
received much attention; and during the administration of 
President Wilson the whole question may be said to have 
dropped from sight, except as regards the presidential post- 
masterships. Bills providing for the abolition of senatorial 
consent for these latter positions were introduced in Congress 
in 1916, and in 191 7 a provision to this effect, embodied in 
the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill passed 
the Senate but failed in conference.^ 

The only recent official mention of the general matter aside 
from the annually repeated recommendations of the Civil 
Service Commission appears in the report made in 191 8 by the 
Tariff Commission to the Committee on Ways and Means on 
the revision of the laws governing the administration of the 
customs. In this report the Commission urges that collectors 
of customs be placed under the provisions of the civil service 
law through the substitution of appointment by the Secretary 
of the Treasury for appointment by the President with the 
confirmation by the Senate.^ 

Movement for Placing Postal Sendee on Merit Basis. — 
The action of President Wilson in placing presidential post- 
masterships, except as to vacancies occurring by expiration of 
the statutory term, upon a competitive merit basis marks the 
most important step in a development which has been proceed- 
ing steadily since the enactment of the Civil Service law in the 
direction of lifting the postal service out of politics. As will 
be recalled the civil service act itself provided (Section 6, 
Second) that the Postmaster-General should "arrange in 
classes the several clerks and persons employed, or in the pub- 
lic service, at each post office, or under any postmaster of the 
United States, where the whole number of said clerks and 

^ See Good Government, vol. 34, p. 21. 

^ Curiously enough, the Commission at the same time recommends, 
not the abolition of the four-year term but its extension to six years. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 127 

persons shall together amount to as many as fifty. And there- 
after, from time tO' time, on the direction of the President, it 
shall be the duty of the Postmaster-General to arrange in like 
classes the clerks and persons so employed in the Postal Service 
in connection with any other post office." Pursuant to this 
authority, the subordinate personnel of all offices of the first 
and second class were for the most part soon brought within 
the classified competitive service.^ The employees of offices not 
having free delivery, and one assistant postmaster (or chief 
assistant tO' the postmaster of whatever designation) at each 
office still remained, however, in the excepted class. By order 
of President Taft, on September 30, 1910, these exceptions 
were abolished and the competitive basis extended tO' virtually 
the whole of the personnel of the postal service, other than 
postmasters tO' which it is practicable to apply competitive 
methods.^ 

It is worthy of note that even before the inclusion of the 
position of assistant postmaster in the competitive service the 
exigencies of the business at many of the larger stations had 
resulted in the promotion of competitive employees to that po- 
sition. Of the 1,504 offices whose personnel was in the com- 
petitive service at the time the order placing assistant post- 
masters in that service went into effect, 348 had assistant 
postmasters who had thus been promoted from the competitive 
service. It is also worthy of note that despite this plain demon- 
stration of the impracticability of the political appointment of 
assistant postmasters in the larger offices, not to speak of its 
impropriety for any office, an attempt was made in Congress 
a few years later to override the President's order and to ex- 
cept assistant postmasters from classification by statute.^ 

Meanwhile, in 1908, a beginning had been made in the ex- 
tension of competitive selection to the postmasters themselves. 

^ The subordinate personnel of the third and fourth class offices (the 
annual receipts of which do not exceed $8,000) and on star routes re- 
mained excepted, and owing to the part-time nature of their service they 
still remain so. 

^ The auditor of the post office at New York City is still in the excepted 
class, without apparent reason. 

^ See Good Government, vol. 31, p. 25. 



128 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The system of selection of thousands of postmasters had re- 
mained unaffected by the passage of the civil service act. The 
postmasters of the fourth class, that is those having total re- 
ceipts of less than $1,900, and an annual salary of less than 
$1,000, were appointed by the Postmaster-General and they 
had from the beginning been "classified" in the excepted class, 
but those of the third, second, and first class, that is "presi- 
dential postmasters," were entirely outside the provisions of 
the law. 

The evils of the political appointment of these tens of 
thousands of humble officers had repeatedly been pointed out by 
the Postmaster-General as well as by the civil service reformers. 
It was not, however, until 1908 that any action was taken. 
On November 30 of that year, President Roosevelt, by amend- 
ment of the civil service rules, transferred from the exempt 
to the competitive class all those fourth class postmasters — 
15,488 in number — in the 14 states north of the Ohio and east 
of the Mississippi rivers. After several years of experimenta- 
tion by the Civil Service Commission and the Post Office De- 
partment in the methods of filling the vacancies in these posi- 
tions as they arose, an order was issued by President Taft 
(on October 15, 1912) extending the classification to include 
all the states (but not Alaska, Hawaii, or Porto Rico). Under 
the plan of classification effected by these orders of President 
Roosevelt and President Taft, all incumbents serving on the 
dates of the orders, however, were treated as brought within 
the classified service without examination. To this method 
of "covering in" political appointees President Wilson appears 
to have taken exception, and on May 7, 1913, he amended the 
order of his predecessors so as to provide that no fourth class 
postmaster should be given a competitive classified status un- 
less and until he had been appointed as a result of open com- 
petitive examination (or, in the case of the smallest offices, 
after selection and inspection by a representative of the Post 
Office Department) ; and he ordered that examinations or in- 
spections accordingly be conducted for all offices where the 
then incumbent has not been so appointed. This order placed 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 129 

upon the Civil Service Commission the responsibility of pro- 
ceeding with examinations and inspections covering 17,318 
offices, and upon the Post Office Department the responsibility 
for inspections at 17,936 offices. 

With the precise methods used in the discharge of their 
responsibilities we are not here concerned; nor will it be of 
value here to enter into discussion of the propriety of the action 
of the Postmaster-General in submitting to the Congressman 
of the appropriate district the names of those certified by the 
Civil Service Commission, with a request for his opinion of the 
candidates "not as a member of any political party but solely as 
the representative of the community regardless of political 
affiliations." ^ The Civil Service Commission stated in its 
annual report for the fiscal year 191 6 after virtually all of the 
work of .appointment under the new regulations had been com- 
pleted, that it was "satisfied that the great majority of the ap- 
pointments were made in the interest of the service," and the 
available evidence seems to justify this statement. For the 
present purpose, however, all this is of secondary importance. 
What is important is that the order of 1913 and the examina- 
tions and inspections of 191 3-6 extended to every fourth class 
postmaster in the United States, the security of tenure contem- 
plated by the civil service law, and fourth class postmasterships 
passed definitely and permanently out of the class of political 
appointments. 

The failure of the efforts of President Taft to secure the 
"classification" of presidential postmasters (as well as of other 
presidential local officers) and the failure of subsequent at- 
tempts in Congress have already been mentioned. Even as late 
as February, 19 17, it doubtless would have been said by most 
that success in this direction was still some distance ofif. On 
March 31, 191 7, however, President Wilson issued an execu- 
tive order providing that all vacancies in first, second, or third 
class postmasterships thereafter occurring by death, resigna- 

^A full official account of the methods of examination and inspection 
of employees, and of the action of the Postmaster General referred to, 
will be found in the Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service 
Commission, pp. xi-xx, xxv-xxvi. 



I30 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tion, or removal, should be filled by open competitive examina- 
tion, the person rated highest to be appointed "unless it is 
established that the character or residence of such applicant 
disqualifies him for appointment." The order also provided 
that the same procedure may be followed where no vacancy 
exists but there is a "recommendation of the First Assistant 
Postmaster-General, approved by the Postmaster-General, to 
the effect that the efficiency or needs of the service requires 
that a change should be made." The actual procedure provided 
is that the Civil Service Commission shall hold the examination, 
and "certify the result thereof to the Postmaster-General who 
shall submit to the President the name of the highest qualified 
eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, unless it is estab- 
lished that the character or residence of such applicant disquali- 
fies him for appointment." After receiving the name submitted 
by the Postmaster-General the President, of course, if he 
chooses, may reject it, and submit the name of one lower on 
the list, or indeed, of anyone he chooses, to the Senate; but 
such action, of course, would be justified only on the strongest 
and most unusual grounds, and has not yet ensued in any single 
case. Nor has the Senate in any case yet declined to confirm 
the nomination of a postmaster selected under this procedure. 
The order, it will be noted, has no application to vacancies 
arising through the expiration of the four-year terms of post- 
masters. No official explanation of the reasons for this major 
exception has ever been issued. The Postmaster-General has 
stated several times that the policy of the administration is to 
reappoint, at the expiration of their four-year terms, those 
postmasters whose efficiency warrants it. Where a reappoint- 
ment is thus made, of course, no examination is called for. It 
is difficult to understand, however, why the principle of ,^he 
order should not be applied to those numerous instances in 
which, upon the expiration of a four-year term, the incumbent 
is not reappointed. In such a case the vacancy is under pres- 
ent practice filled by a political appointment precisely as be- 
fore the issuance of President Wilson's order. The data re- 
garding the appointment of postmasters contained in the annual 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 131 

report of the Post Office Department are unfortunately not 
sufficiently full to disclose the relative proportions of appoint- 
ments with and without examinations, and of reappointments 
and original appointments. But whatever the figures, it does 
not seem open to question that the original order ought to be 
amended so as to apply to vacancies arising by expiration of 
the four-year term where the incumbent is not reappointed. 
Were this amendment made, the pressure upon the President 
to replace an efficient postmaster, upon the expiration of his 
four-year term, by a political appointee — a pressure the force 
of which was signally illustrated in connection with the New 
York postmastership but a few months before President Wil- 
son issued his order — would completely disappear. Such an 
order in effect would completely remove the postmasterships 
from politics, except to the extent that political pressure might 
be brought by a present incumbent to secure his reappointment 
instead of the throwing open of the post to open competition. 
President Wilson's order was issued on March 31, 191 7, 
but it was naturally some months before the methods to be fol- 
lowed by the Civil Service Commission in conducting the novel 
type of examination involved were settled upon and applied. 
Up to June 30, 191 9, the order, therefore, had been in prac- 
tical operation something less than two years. The situation 
with respect to the presidential postmasters is thus that they 
have been removed from politics in large measure. However, 
not only are a great proportion, if not the majority of them 
still political appointees, but there is nothing in the system thus 
far set up which insures that this proportion will diminish, or 
in fact will not increase; for those who have been appointed 
upon examination, solely for merit, may at the expiration of 
their four-year terms be displaced by political appointees. The 
current system is thus at best an unstable and precarious one, 
and needs to be reen forced by changes in the executive order 
now in force, along the lines above suggested. As has been 
pointed out with respect to local officers generally, a perma- 
nently satisfactory system, of course, can come only through 
legislation definitely abrogating the four-year term, and plac- 



132 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ing postmasterships squarely in the competitive class under 
the civil service law and rules. ^ 

Chief National Bank Examiners. — A group of local chief 
officers who, though not presidential appointees, are in the ex- 
cepted class, are: the chief national bank examiners, of whom 
there are 12, one in each of the Federal Reserve cities; the 
subordinate bank examiners, of whom there are at the pres- 
ent time 129. These are also in the excepted class, and 
both groups may conveniently be considered together. The 
practice of appointing these employees without examination had 
prevailed for many years after the enactment of the civil 
service law despite the absence of any specific exception in the 
rules, and by order of February 3, 1909, this practice was 
given legal status following an opinion rendered by the Attor- 
ney General holding that these positions must be filled by open 
competitive examination unless specifically excepted. The Ex- 
ecutive Order making the exception, dated February 3, 1909, 
gives as the sole reason that "the present Comptroller of the 
Currency, as well as former occupants of that position, was of 
the opinion that owing to their confidential character it was 
impracticable to fill these positions as a result of open competi- 
tive examination." ^ And the Commission, in its report for 

^ On May 10, 1921, while the present work was in press, President 
Harding issued a new Executive Order regarding the appointment of 
first, second, and third class postmasters. It requires that examinations 
shall be held "when a vacancy exists or hereafter occurs ... if such a 
vacancy is not filled by nomination of some person within the competitive 
classified civil service who has the required qualifications." The defect in 
the Executive Order of March 31, 1917, is thus cured. The new order, 
however, permits the Postmaster General to submit to the President "the 
name of any one of the highest three qualified eligibles for appointment 
unless it is established that the character or residence of any such appli- 
cant _ disqualify him for appointment." The order of March 31, 1917, 
required the Postmaster General to submit to the President the name of 
the one highest qualified eligible. The new order contains a proviso that 
at the expiration of the term of any person appointed to such a position 
through examination before the Civil Service Commission, the Postmaster 
General may in his discretion submit the name of such person to the 
President for renomination without further examination. It does not re- 
quire the retention of the incumbent provided he has been efficient. The 
new order, with its provisions for the selection of one of the three highest 
and for new examinations on the expiration of the four-year term, still 
leaves open a wide possibility for political preference. 

' Twenty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, 
(1909), p. 113. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 133 

1 9 10, stated that "the highly confidential character of their 
employment and the degree to which the personal element en- 
ters in determining fitness are the reasons advanced by the 
Department for treating these employees as in the excepted 
class." ^ It is difficult to understand why the Commission 
should have recommended this exception to the President. In 
point of fact, the Secretary of the Treasury himself, in the 
following year, was stated to be considering the competitive 
classification of bank examiners, though no action was taken. - 
Field Services: Subordinate Personnel. — The subordinate 
personnel of the local offices and establishments in part are ap- 
pointed by the head of the service and in part by the officer 
in charge of the local office or establishment. In the case 
of the large industrial establishments of the Government, ar- 
senals, the navy yards, and the like, the methods followed in 
the employment of the forces of mechanical employees are 
similar to those followed in all large industrial establishments. 
The subordinate personnel of the field service (other than 
postmasters) not in the competitive service are as follows: 

Presidential Positions 

Positions specifically exempted by statute : 

Deputy collectors of internal revenue 

Deputy marshals 

Employees of the Federal Farm Loan Board 

Positions excepted by Civil Service rules : 

The numerous positions which have already been listed in detail 
in the preceding chapter. 

Deputy Collectors of Internal Revenue and Deputy Mar- 
shals. — The case of the deputy collectors of internal revenue 
and the deputy marshals is of special interest as rep- 

^ Idem, p. II. 

^Report of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform League 
contained in the Proceedings of the League, 1910, p. 61. 

The report further states that "the matter has been further taken up 
with the Comptroller of the Currency. Bank failures which disclosed 
inefficient investigations make such an extension seem desirable, and the 
fact that bank examiners of New York City, under the competitive system, 
have done most efficient work with the utmost despatch, makes it seem 
desirable." 



134 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

resenting the only recent instance in which a large class of 
subordinate employees have been withdrawn from the opera- 
tion of the civil service law and the system of competitive selec- 
tion. The deputy collectors of internal revenue number some 
1,500/ the bulk of them being paid from $1,000 to $1,500, 
with a maximum salary of $3,000. The deputy marshals are 
about 550 in number,^ and their scale of salaries is slightly 
higher. The appointment of deputy collectors of internal 
revenue was first authorized in 1864; ^ that of deputy marshals 
in 1896.'^ Appointment is made by the collector and the mar- 
shal respectively, and in both cases the principal is made per- 
sonally responsible for the acts of his deputy. Except for a 
brief period, from 1896 to 1899,^ both classes of positions, be- 
cause of the personal relation thus imported by the statutes, 
had been exempt from competition ; but by the order of Novem- 
ber 7, 1906, President Roosevelt placed the deputy collectors 
in the competitive class; and by the order of March 2, 1909, 
but two days before the expiration of his term, he took similar 
action with respect to the deputy marshals. By these orders 
the incumbents of the positions were "covered" into the com- 
petitive class. They, however, did not acquire thereby as 
secure a tenure as the ordinary competitive employee, for the 
statutes creating their positions made their terms dependent 
upon that of their several principals.^ What would thus seem 

^The number employed during the fiscal year 1918 was 1,283; for 1920 
an increase to 1,837 was estimated. Book of Estimates, 1920, p. 61. 

^868 in 1918, Book of Estimates, 1920, p. 829. 

^Act of June 30, 1864, Sec. 10; 13 Stat., 225. This act provided that 
deputy collectors should be compensated by the collector personally. By 
act of February 8, 1875, as amended by act of March i, 1879 (20 Stat., 
329), it was provided that their compensation should thereafter be paid by 
the government. 

'Act of March 8, 1896 (Sec. 10), 29 Stat. 182. 

^The general revision of the civil service rules, promulgated -May 6, 
1896, placed in the competitive class many positions which were later 
withdrawn from competition by the order of May 29, 1899. 

" "A newly appointed collector of internal revenue has a legal right, 
upon taking office, to drop from the service any deputy collector in com- 
mission and to appoint deputies of his own selection in accordance with 
the rules of the Civil Service Commission." (Opinion Atty. Gen., Sept. 3, 
1907, 26 Op. 363.) 

A ruling similar to the above was made with reference to United 
States deputy marshal on November 30, 1910, by the Comptroller of the 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 135 

to have been desired in the premises was the repeal by Congress 
of the special provisions responsible for this peculiar status of 
these officers. Instead, however, Congress, in 1913, by rider 
to the deficiency appropriation act, enacted "that hereafter any 
deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy marshal who may 
be required ... to execute a bond ... to secure faithful 
performance of official duty may be appointed" without regard 
to the civil service law.^ 

It is difficult to see wherein the duties of either of these 
classes of officers in any degree call for their exemption from 
the civil service act. The fact brought out in the act, that 
these officers are required to give a bond to their immediate 
superiors, far from furnishing a reason for their exemption 
from competitive selection, is what makes such selection the 
more practicable; for it renders of less importance the element 
of personal trust which is theoretically desirable because of the 
personal liability of the collector or marshal for the acts of 
his deputy. 

Indicative of the almost universal acceptance which the 
merit principle has achieved is the fact that, upon the enact- 
ment of the legislation under discussion, official protestations 
were issued, on behalf of the administration, that no de- 
parture from the principles of merit was contemplated. The 
President in affixing his signature to the bill, issued a memor- 

Treasury, who held that the term of a deputy marshal expires with that of 
the marshal who appointed him. If not reappointed, his successor must 
be chosen under civil service rules. (Decisions of the Comptroller, vol. 
17, p. 362.) 

^ The text of the provision is as follows : 

"That hereafter any deputy collector of internal revenue or deputy 
marshal who may be required by law or by authority or direction of the 
collector of internal revenue or the United States marshal to execute a 
bond to the collector of internal revenue or United States marshal to 
secure faithful performance of official duty may be appointed by the said 
collector or marshal, who may require such bond without regard to the 
provisions of an act of Congress entitled 'An act to regulate and improve 
the civil service of the United States,' approved January sixteenth, eighteen 
hundred and eighty-threCj and amendments thereto, or any rule or regula- 
tion made in pursuance thereof, and the officer requiring said bond shall 
have power to revoke the appointment of any subordinate officer or 
employee and appoint his successor at his discretion without regard to the 
act, amendments, rules, or regulations aforesaid." (Act of October 22, 
1913; 38 Stat, 208.) 



136 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

andum in which, after resorting to the unexpected and very- 
doubt ful defense that "the offices of deputy collector and deputy 
marshal were never intended to be included under the ordinary 
provisions of the civil service law," he pointed out that "the 
control of the whole method and spirit of the administration 
of the proviso in this bill which concerns the appointment of 
these officers is no less entirely in my hands now than it was 
before the bill became law" ^ and gave assurance that there 
was "no danger that the spoils system will creep in with my 
approval or connivance." ^ The Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue instructed all collectors "that the object of this pro- 
vision of law is efficiency and only efficiency, and that any 
tendency to use this class of appointments merely for personal 
reward, or for anything that savors of the spoils system, will 
be regarded as a very serious disregard of public duty" ; and 
he ordered that changes in the personnel of the force of deputy 
collectors could be made only with his approval. Similar in- 
structions were issued by the Attorney General with respect to 
deputy marshals. 

The number of removals and new appointments that have 
been made under the authority granted by this proviso has not 
been published, nor are any data available indicating the extent 
to which the action taken has been "for efficiency and only effi- 
ciency." Whatever the facts may be, however, not a single 
valid reason has been advanced why these two classes of local 
employees should not be selected through public competition.^ 

^ This statement is correct only in a very general sense. Before the 
enactment of this proviso, the appointment of deputy collectors and deputy 
marshals had been controlled by the civil service laws and it would have 
required express action of the President to remove it from competitive 
examination under the supervision of the Civil Service Commission — 
action which had never been taken. Under the present provision it would 
require positive action by the President to establish any form of jxontrol 
or even direction over the method of appointment. No such action has 
been taken, except that the instructions of the Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue and the Attorney General, referred to below, were probably issued 
at the direction of the President. 

"^ Quoted in Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service 
Commission (1914), p. 138. 

' An excellent discussion of this matter is contained in the letter from 
the Civil Service Commission to the President reproduced in the Twenty- 
seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1910), 
P- 145. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 137 

Field Employees: Federal Farm Loan Board. — The field 
employees of the Federal Farm Loan Board are excepted 
from the provisions of the civil service act by the law creat- 
ing the Board, which excepts the entire personnel. That ex- 
ception has already been characterized as indefensible, and 
nothing regarding the field forces offers any reason for modify- 
ing this characterization. Although this force, like the force 
at Washington, has been selected in fact with a due regard 
for merit, its exception is inconsistent with the principle of the 
civil service law and is particularly undesirable. Should an 
appointment to such positions as that of appraiser be made 
for political reasons, the appointee would be peculiarly subject 
to improper influence, a danger particularly to be guarded 
against in this service. The same is applicable to such of the 
local employees of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance as are 
appointed without competition under the special statutory ex- 
ception of the technical employees of the bureau. 

The remaining exceptions to the competitive principle in 
the classified field service fall chiefly in the class of skilled 
labor and in the special classes in which the service required is 
temporary, occasional, or of a part-time character ; or in which 
the work is carried on in such unusual locations that competi- 
tion would be impracticable or where the salary offered is so 
low that no competition would be likely to be secured. 

The specific exceptions falling under this head have been 
reviewed already in the preceding chapter, and the position 
there taken, that these exceptions are in the main justifiable 
in the interests of good administration, though in a measurable 
proportion of the cases no inconvenience to the service would 
result, and the principle of formal selection would be better 
observed, were a system of provisional appointment subject to 
non-competitive examination or approval by the Civil Service 
Commission substituted for the unregulated methods of selec- 
tion which now prevail. 

Postal Employees: Star Routes and Third and Fourth 
Class Post Offices. — The only class of employees to which 
attention may here be called is that of postal employees on the 



138 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

star routes or in third or fourth class post offices. This class 
O'f employees includes more persons than any other group in 
one of the most numerous classes of federal employees to be 
found anywhere in the service. Strictly speaking, however, 
they are not to be regarded as federal employees, since their 
salaries are fixed and paid, not by the Government, but by the 
postmasters of the several offices in which they are employed. 
From the standpoint of the federal personnel system they are 
of interest only to the extent that it is the duty and interest of 
the Government to see that these employees are provided with 
proper working conditions and are not unduly exploited by the 
postmasters for whom they work, recjuirements which it is dif- 
ficult for the Government to meet. They are also of interest 
in view of the civil service rule which provides that when a 
post office is advanced to the second class the employees of 
that office acquire the status of competitive postal clerks, pro- 
vided only that they satisfy the Postmaster-General of their 
ability.^ 

Laborers. — The appointment of laborers in the local offices 
and establishments, like the appointment of those who serve 
in Washington, has been made a subject of regulations by 
the President pursuant to the authority conferred upon him by 
the act of 1871. These regulations^ do not apply to all la- 
borers in the field but only to those in cities or to branches of 
the service designated by the Civil Service Commission. Up 

^ The rule provides (Rule II, sec. 7) that on the date of the effect of 
such order (for the advancement of an office from third class to second 
class or for the consolidation of any office with one of the first or second 
classes) these rules shall apply to positions, officers, and employees of the 
offices affected in the same manner as they apply to others now classified, 
and all appointments after an eligible register has been established shall 
be made by selection from the register; but no officer or employee in any 
post office shall be classified under the terms of the section who fails to 
establish to the satisfaction of the Postmaster General his capacity for 
efficient service in the position held ; and if he has been appointed to such 
office within less than 60 days prior to the application of these rules, he 
shall not be classified without the express consent of the Commission." 
It may be noted that in this rule the term "classified" is used in the narrow 
and incorrect sense of "classified competitive." Incidentally, this incorrect 
use of the term occurs in the very rule in which the definition of 
"classified" is laid down. 

* Promulgated July 3, 1909, and amended. They are to be found in 
the annual report of the Civil Service Commission. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 139 

to June 30, 191 5, the regulations had been extended by the 
Civil Service Commission to some forty cities and to all un- 
skilled labor positions in the assistant custodian and janitor 
service under the Treasury Department, that is in the public 
buildings. It is particularly desirable that these regulations 
should be put into force over the remainder of the field service 
as rapidly as possible. Minor as are the positions involved 
they have always been a fruitful field for the spoilsman. It 
must be admitted, however, that owing to the undesirable char- 
acter and very low remuneration of these positions in the fed- 
eral service the competition for them, even where competitive 
methods are applied, is so slight as to have virtually no effect. 
The effort of the spoilsman in this field is not so much to have 
a particular individual appointed as it is to have a position 
created or to have an unnecessary one retained so that the 
object of his solicitude may be taken care of. This sort of 
political influence is beyond the reach of personnel methods. It 
is the province of the financial and not of the personnel ad- 
ministration to prevent the creation or retention of unnecessary 
posts. 

Foreign Service. — The foreign service of the government 
falls into two main divisions, the diplomatic and the consular. 
In the diplomatic service, the "ambassadors and other public 
ministers (including doubtless commissioners, charges d'af- 
faires, and agents), are required by the Constitution to be 
appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate. The statutes also require that appointments 
of secretaries of embassy and legation, and of secretaries, be 
made by the President and Senate ; ^ and, as already stated, a 
system of non-competitive selection has been set up for these 
positions by executive order. Clerks, interpreters, and stu- 
dent interpreters at the embassies and legations are appointed 
by the Secretary of State. These employees are, therefore, 
within the scope of the civil service law ; but a provision of the 
rules covering "any person employed in a foreign country under 

* Revised Statutes, Sec. 1684. 



I40 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the State Department" ^ excepts themi from regular civil 
service examination. Except in so far as a non-competitive ex- 
amination is conducted by the State Department, the clerks for 
foreign service are selected without examination. 

In the consular service, a similar condition obtains. "Con- 
suls" (which term includes "consular agents") must also un- 
der the Constitution be appointed by the President and Senate ; 
while the clerical employees of the several consulates are ex- 
cepted from examination under the provision of the civil 
service rules just quoted. The non-competitive examination 
system of the State Department, however, is applied to both. 
In the whole field of the foreign service, therefore, it is virtually 
only the highest positions, that of ambassador or minister — 
or, as it is sometimes called, chief of mission — that is not em- 
braced in the system of formal non-competitive selection ad- 
ministered by the Department of State. 

All the posts of ambassadors and ministers — are, as is well 
known, political. The executive order of 1909, setting up a 
formal system of selection for diplomatic secretaries, provides 
that the Secretary of State shall recommend to the President 
secretaries of embassy or of legation who are capable of be- 
ing promoted to the post of chief of mission. If such recom- 
mendations have been made on the occurrence of vacancies in 
posts of chief of mission, they have been disregarded by the 
President in virtually all cases ; for the order has had little or 
no efifect whatever in ameliorating the purely political selec- 
tion for those posts except possibly some of the minor ones. 

That the entrance of political considerations in the selection 
for these posts is improper, that it results in an inferior type 
of diplomatic service, and that in no other great nation is the 
principle of purely political appointment to posts of this char- 
acter in force are all well worn truisms which have been put 
before the public repeatedly in recent years. It is difficult 
to find a specific remedy for this situation owing to the diffi- 
culty of devising any formal or rigid system of selection. A 

* Schedule A, I, 7. 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 141 

committee of the National Civil Service Reform League, 
which recently made a study of this entire subject, came to 
the conclusion that the next step should be merely "that the 
President be urged to fill the post of minister by the promO'- 
tion of capable officers in the foreign service and that when a 
vacancy occurs the Secretary of State be required to submit 
to the President for his consideration the names of secretaries 
and consuls who merit promotion," and "that the President 
be urged in as far as practicable to promote ministers to 
embassies when vacant." ^ It must be admitted that while 
this recommendation is doubtless all that is practicable under 
the circumstances (for any legislation looking to the taking 
of these officers out of the presidential class or limiting the 
presidential power of removal is clearly barred by the Con- 
stitution) it furnishes no very concrete material on which to 
work." 

It may be questioned whether there is not a tendency on 
the part of some of the advocates of the merit principle to 
over-emphasize the value as applied to the diplomatic service of 
that principle of selection from within the service which is ad- 
mittedly and perhaps unquestionably sound as applied to most 
branches of the federal service. While every chief of mission, 
of course, should be possessed of a generous intellectual equip- 
ment in the field of history and politics and international af- 
fairs, and while a knowledge of the more technical aspects 
of international law and etiquette are obviously an asset of 
the highest value for the purpose, it by no means follows that 
the best diplomatic representative can always be found in 
the ranks of the permanent diplomatic service. Diplomacy in 
its more difficult and important aspects is, after all, a political 
rather than a technical matter, and it may well be that on occa- 
sions the country's interests would be poorly served were the 

^ Report on the Foreign Service, p. 19. 

^ It is significant that an earlier declaration of the National Civil 
Service Reform League advocated the invariable selection of ambassadors 
and ministers from the permanent personnel of the lovi^er ranks. See 
Good Government, 1918, p. 119; apparently the committee on the foreign 
service regarded this recommendation as impracticable. 



142 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

President to restrict his choice too rigorously to the member- 
ship of the permanent diplomatic corps. It is notable that 
some of the foreign nations in which the tradition of a perma- 
nent diplomatic personnel has long been well established have 
broken away from the tradition from time to time, and es- 
pecially in recent years, and appointed to their most important 
missions men without previous diplomatic experience, but of 
tested political wisdom. Moreover, the long life of the tradi- 
tion of a permanent diplomatic corps in those countries has 
had the effect of bringing into the service at an early age 
men of a type who are not likely to be attracted into our diplo- 
matic service until the tradition of selection of these men on a 
merit basis from within the service has long been well estab- 
lished. So for many years to come it is probable that less 
promising material, on the average, will be available for promo- 
tion to the highest missions in our service, than in the French 
or British, for example. All this is not to say, of course, that 
it is proper under any circumstances that diplomatic missions 
should be awarded to "deserving Democrats" or for the pur- 
pose of enabling politicians with social aspirations to bask in 
the atmosphere of foreign courts; it is intended merely to 
emphasize that the extreme application of the principle of selec- 
tion from within the service, so frequently urged by civil service 
reformers, here needs to be accepted with great caution. 
Conclusion. — If all administrative officers and all subordi- 
nate personnel originally were selected on a wholly non- 
political merit basis, by means of formalized methods, and 
were an effective prohibition placed on the intervention 
of politicians outside the service in any manner whatso- 
ever in personnel matters, it is altogether likely that no fur- 
ther measures would need to be taken to exclude politics 
from the administration of the federal personnel system. 
The administrator, himself wholly non-political and subject 
to no outside influence, might safely be entrusted with 
as full a measure of discretion in personnel matters as is ac- 
corded the manager in private enterprises. This does not mean 
that discretion would be absolute. Even in private enter- 



FORMAL SYSTEMS OF SELECTION 143 

prises of the larger kind it is found necessary to establish rules 
and procedures to insure that not merely in general but in every 
individual case the employee shall receive the full measure of 
justice and consideration, and that all shall be treated alike; 
and, obviously, restrictions of this kind will always be equally 
necessary in public personnel systems. But further restriction, 
aimed specifically at the abuse of discretion for political pur- 
poses, will be unnecessary. 

In the present situation, however, with the majority of 
chief officers still selected and removed on political grounds, 
with political appointment and removal still obtaining over a 
not inconsiderable area of the subordinate personnel, and with 
virtually no progress made in prohibiting the interference of 
politicians outside the service with the action of the adminis- 
trator in personnel matters, the need for additional protection 
against political influence is felt at a number of points. The 
precise nature and extent of the restrictions and procedures 
designed to afford such protection, however, may be consid- 
ered profitably only in conjunction with the detailed consid- 
eration of the several phases of personnel administration in 
the second part of this volume. The personnel practices of 
the government are, and under existing conditions should be, 
a compound of, and not infrequently a compromise between, 
the dictates of personnel administration proper, and of the 
need for protection against political interference. Hence, as 
applied to specific procedures and regulations, the latter can 
be usefully described only in conjunction with the former. 
In the second part of this volume, devoted though it is to per- 
sonnel administration proper, it will be necessary frequently 
to consider what procedures or regulations should be adopted 
under the basic relations between the f edera;l personnel system 
and the political world now prevailing, to prevent the intrusion 
of political influence at this point and that. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE INSIDE 

THE SERVICE 

In the foregoing chapter the complete elimination of poli- 
tics in selection, and particularly in the selection of the direct- 
ing personnel, with the exception of the heads of executive 
departments, was declared to be the sine qua non of the es- 
tablishment of a proper personnel system. But even were the 
entire personnel selected solely on a basis of merit, or at least 
through the application of formal systems of recruitment, 
guard would still have to be kept against the intrusion of po- 
litical influence at various points in the personnel system. To 
devise a formal system of recruitment which will absolutely 
exclude the need for the exercise of any discretion whatever 
by the administrative officer is difficult, and with respect to 
some classes of positions virtually impossible. In matters af- 
fecting the employee after selection, such as assignment, pro- 
motion, demotion, increase or reduction of salary, removal, 
and retirement, it is, from the standpoint of sound adminis- 
tration, still more difficult and, in addition, very unwise to 
attempt to limit severely the discretion of the administrative 
officer. At all these points he must be allowed some discre- 
tion; and at all these points there is danger, even though the 
administrative officer be a non-political, permanent officer and 
the employee himself appointed wholly without political in- 
fluence, that the employee affected may seek to enlist political 
influence on his behalf. 

Since this would he true, even if all of personnel, from 
lowest to highest, were chosen by formal methods of a more 
or less competitive character, it need not be said that in the 
federal service, where, as just seen, the greater part of the 
directing personnel and no small part of the subordinate per- 

144 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 145 

sonnel is still selected wholly without formal methods or com- 
petition and chiefly on political grounds, the need for rigidly 
excluding politicians outside the service from influencing ad- 
ministrative action in personnel matters is a most vital one. 
The Congressman and Political Interference. — Political 
influence in respect to personnel matters is usually brought 
to bear on federal administrative officers in behalf of an em- 
ployee or prospective employee through "his" Representative, 
but sometimes through "his" Senator. In the case of local 
offices an unofficial politician may be the medium, but even 
here the Representative or Senator is usually brought into 
action. In some cases the person thus invoking the good 
offices of his representative is an active political worker, but 
the rigor and the increasingly effective enforcement of the 
civil service rules prohibiting undue political activity by classi- 
fied employees ^ make it improbable that one who is already 
an employee is anything more than a friend or relative of an 
active political worker. In perhaps as many cases as not, 
moreover, the person seeking congressional intervention is 
merely a constituent of the Congressman with no special claim 
to consideration whatever. It is one of the peculiarities of the 
congressional temperament to be unable to refuse a request 
for intervention on behalf of a constituent - even though the 

^ These rules are discussed in the following chapter. 

' While referring primarily to a matter of economy rather than of 
personnel administration proper, the following colloquy in the Senate on 
December 4, 1919, is illustrative of the readiness with which members of 
Congress lend themselves to intervention in personnel matters : 

Mr. Thomas. "I think there is another reason which prevents the 
reduction of the civil service force, and that is Congress, or, rather, the 
individual Members of the two Houses. The Senator will correct me if 
I am wrong, because he knows, but I was informed that a reduction was 
made, or proposed to be made, in one of the departments some time ago." 

Mr. Smoot. "In the War Department." 

Mr. Thomas. "A reduction of 500 employees, and within 24 hours 
169 protests personal and by letter, were lodged by Members of both 
Houses of Congress against the reduction, as affecting certain of their 
constituents, with the result that the movement was aborted and paralyzed, 
and then abandoned. Is that correct?" 

Mr. Smoot. "The Senator is correct. There were 169 protests within 
24 hours." 

Mr. Thomas. "One can imagine the number of protests that would 
have been made if the reduction had been 5,000 instead of 500." (Con- 
gressional Record, December 4, 191 9, p. ii4-) 



146 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Representative may be morally certain in advance that such 
intervention will avail his constituent nothing, as is indeed 
often the case. Hence adnninistrative officers are continually 
pestered with merely perfunctory recommendations and re- 
quests from Congressmen with reference to proposed appoint- 
ments, assignments, promotions, salary increases and reduc- 
tions, removals, and indeed all other matters of personnel 
affecting the fortunes of individuals. A courteous acknowl- 
edgment or promise of consideration by the administrative 
officer usually satisfies the etiquette of the case. To' this 
extent, congressional intervention is more serious as an annoy- 
ance than as a factor in actually influencing personnel 
administration. 

Where, however, a Representative or Senator chooses for 
whatever reason to take a real interest in the fortunes of a 
particular employee, and to make real exertions on his behalf, 
he is generally able to bring influences to bear which only a 
very courageous and very well intrenched administrative of- 
ficer can resist. Particularly is this so if the Representative or 
Senator in question is a member of the appropriations com- 
mittee which passes on any part of the appropriations for the 
service with which that officer is connected, or indeed for any 
branch of the executive department in which that service falls ; 
or if, though not himself a member of the committee, the Rep- 
resentative or Senator possesses, through political or log-roll- 
ing connections, a measure of influence with that committee. 
Every head of a service, or of any distinct branch of a service 
for which Congress appropriates separately, lives ever in the 
fear of the pruning knife, or even the ax, of the appropria- 
tions committees. Those branches of the service whose func- 
tions are well established by tradition, or whose continuoiis op- 
eration on an adequate scale is indispensable, of course, stand 
in less danger of drastic reductions in appropriation than do 

A former important officer at Washington has told th€ writer of an 
instance in which the entire congressional delegation from a certain state, 
two Senators and three Congressmen, had visited his office in a body tO' 
intercede on behalf of a native son who had been dismissed for habitual 
drunkenness and neglect of duty. 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 147 

those whose functions are novel or of more doubtful necessity. 
But even where no reduction in appropriations is to be feared, 
the head of a department is ever seeking their enlargement 
and must think long before denying the request of a Repre- 
sentative or Senator on whose vote in committee, or on whose 
intervention with the committee, may some day depend the 
fate of an important requested increase in appropriation. 
There can be no doubt that the effective interference of the 
individual Representative or Senator in personnel matters 
derives largely from the detailed control of Congress over 
appropriations, as exercised by its several committees. 

A measure of relief from this condition is likely to be found 
from the development toward a more ordered procedure and 
a more concentrated authority for the formulation and adop- 
tion of the federal appropriation measures. This will almost 
inevitably reduce the possibility of the use of the appropriat- 
ing power to strike at an administrative officer who has 
incurred congressional displeasure. 

Another factor which has been of much importance in 
perpetuating the tradition of interference by politicians, and 
more especially by members of Congress, in personnel mat- 
ters, has been the failure of Congress, and perhaps even more 
specifically of the President and the Civil Service Commission, 
to develop the necessary machinery for the routine perform- 
ance of some of the elementary processes of personnel admin- 
istration. In a subsequent chapter, attention will be called to 
the complete failure to develop, for example, any machinery 
for facilitating the transfer of employees between the depart- 
ments, even when such transfers are obviously demanded by 
the needs of the service, and indeed the failure of the depart- 
ments themselves to develop similar machinery with respect 
to transfer among the several services of the same department. 
The natural result of this failure has been that the employee 
seeking a transfer and having open to him no regular and 
formal method of obtaining it, often resorts to his Representa- 
tive or Senator for assistance. In fact, if a newer employee 
in Washington seeking information should ask an older one 



148 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

how transfers were effected, he would probably be told that 
ordinarily the Representative or Senator helps the employee in 
bringing himself to the attention of the office to which he 
wishes to be transferred. Similar instances could be cited at 
other points in the system. The establishment of adequate 
methods and machinery under all these heads would do much 
to weaken the tradition of political intervention. 
Direct Prohibition of Outside Intervention in Personnel 
Matters. — There is, however, a more direct way of attack- 
ing the evil, not only as respects Congressmen but any other 
individual outside the service, namely, the method of directly 
prohibiting any person from interceding with administrative 
officers in any personnel matter whatsoever. 

So obvious is the need for a direct prohibition of this 
sort that an attempt to secure it would seem to be one of the 
elementary planks in any program of civil service reform. Yet 
in virtually none of the laws which have been enacted in the 
various jurisdictions is any such attempt made. In the fed- 
eral service the only provision of law under this head is that 
found in the civil service act (Section lo) which prohibits any 
person concerned in giving any examination or making ap- 
pointment under the act from "receiving or considering" any 
recommendation of any person which may be given by any 
Senator or any member of the House "except as to character 
or residence of the applicant." 

Aside from this obviously unenforceable provision no leg- 
islation looking to a prohibition of political interference with 
the administration of personnel matters has been enacted, or, 
so far as known, ever been introduced in Congress, and the 
civil service rules contain only one provision aimed in this 
direction.^ This is the provision occurring in the rule bear- 

^ During the period 1902-1912 there were in effect various Executive 
Orders prohibiting employees from soliciting the aid of Congressmen (or 
Congressional committees of Congress) on their behalf. While they 
applied in terms to the attempt of an individual employee to solicit inter- 
vention on his personal behalf, they were essentially directed against 
attempts of groups of organizations of employees to influence legislation ; 
and their effect as respects trafific between individual employees and Con- 
gressmen, while substantial, was not of major importance. 



-.^iMl 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 149 

ing on promotion, which prohibits any officer concerned in 
making promotions from considering any recommendation for 
the promotion of a classified employee unless it be made by 
the person under whose supervision the employee has served 
(Rule II, Paragraph 3). This regulation, it will be noted, 
does not prohibit the making of such a recommendation ex- 
cept to the extent that it provides that such recommendation 
is made "with the knowledge and consent of the employee" 
which "shall be sufficient cause for removing him from the 
service." 

The futile character of the existing law and regulations, 
which in no wise penalize the person making the recommenda- 
tions, which authorize no penalty upon the employee (unless, 
in the case of the regulation, the recommendation is made 
with his "knowledge and consent," an element which could 
well be assumed in every case and which even then does not 
require the penalizing of the employee, but merely authorizes 
such penalty) need not be enlarged upon. It is hardly neces- 
sary to add that these provisions are wholly without effect 
upon the current situation. 

What is needed is an express prohibition aimed not merely 
at the employee but at the person making the recommendation 
or interceding in any way for an employee. The situation 
calls for a thoroughgoing measure. Legislation making it a 
penal offense for any one ^ to make any recommendation to 
an administrative officer in behalf of any individual employee 
would largely go beyond the needs of the case. 

It will be argued, of course, that it would be improper to 
prohibit a Congressman from giving his opinion to an admin- 
istrative officer as a private citizen ; and indeed the Postmaster 
General in recent years stated that in submitting to the Repre- 
sentative of the district the names of the three highest eligibles 
for fourth class postmaster and for rural carrier, he called 
upon the member "not in his capacity as a member of any 

^ Exception should be made, of course, of former employers or teach- 
ers of applicants for appointment, when recommendation is requested by 
the administration officer. 



ISO THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

political party but solely as the representative of the com- 
munity regardless of political affiliations." ^ Aside from the 
question whether it is morally or intellectually possible for the 
average member of Congress to act wholly as a private citizen, 
"regardless of political affiliations," nothing is clearer than 
that in the overwhelming majority of cases Congressmen, if 
they act at all, act, and must continue to act in these matters, 
as politicians; that is to say, in the ordinary case they must 
put the wishes of the constituent above the interest of the 
service. It has been thought perfectly proper for the Presi- 
dent to promulgate rules prohibiting the active participation of 
classified civil service employees in politics, even though such 
activity might be carried on wholly in the character of a pri- 
vate citizen and might have no relation whatever to the duties 
of the employee. In precisely the same way, there should be 
no objection to prohibiting the political officers of the gov- 
ernment from participating in any way whatsoever in admin- 
istrative affairs. 

Although the precise method here proposed may be some- 
what more radical than would be generally favgred, most 
Congressmen, undoubtedly most of the better sort, would them- 
selves strongly favor some measure of relief from the weari- 
some and time-consuming pressure of constituents in per- 
sonnel matters — something which would enable them to es- 
cape the importunities of the constituents by pleading some 
statutory or other overpowering disability. 

Complementary to such a statutory provision there should 
be one penalizing the individual, whether an employee or merely 
an applicant, who solicits such intervention in his behalf. 
Whether or not such a statute be enacted, the civil service rules 
themselves ought to be amended immediately so as to direct 
summary removal of any employee, and the debarment from 
appointment of any applicant, on whose behalf intervention is 
made unless the employee can show positively that the inter- 
vention was unsought, and to require administrative officers 

^ Statement of Postmaster General, November 17, 1917, quoted in the 
Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1916), 
p. xvi. 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 151 

to report all cases of intervention directly to the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission. 

Location of Legal Power in Personnel Matters. — A factor 
of no small importance in determining the extent of political 
influence in personnel matters is found in the legal provisions 
governing the location of the power of appointment and, in- 
ferentially, of the powers of promotion, demotion, salary in- 
crease, and assignment and removal. As already seen, the 
Constitution itself requires that "officers" may be appointed 
only by the President (with or without the consent of the 
Senate), by the courts of law (which may be neglected for 
practical purposes) and by the heads of departments. As 
to "employees and agents," it is the general rule that such 
persons, unless the statute providing for their employment 
otherwise directs, shall be appointed by the heads of depart- 
ments.^ With respect to some of the field employees, includ- 
ing even some who might be regarded as "officers" (for exam- 
ple, deputy marshals, deputy collectors of internal revenue, 
etc.), the statute has provided that appointment shall be by 
the local chief officer, but again certain field employees are by 
law to be appointed by the head of the bureau in Washing- 
ton. 

The net effect of the scheme of distribution of the appoint- 
ing power just outlined may be illustrated by applying it to 
a single typical service as, for example, the Internal Revenue 
Service, which is a bureau of the Treasury. The Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue is appointed by the President with 
the advice and consent of the Senate. His subordinates at 
Washington from highest to lowest are appointed by the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury. Passing to the field establishments of 
the service, the collector in charge of each collection district 
is appointed by the President with the consent of the Sen- 
ate; while the subordinate personnel, the deputy collectors, 

^ "Each head of department is authorized to employ in his department 
such number of clerks of the several classes recognized by law and such 
messengers, assistant messengers, copyists, watchmen, laborers, and other 
employees ... as may be appropriated for by Congress from year to 
year." (Act of April 22, 1854, incorporated in Revised Statutes, Section 
169.) 



152 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

clerks, etc., are appointed in part by the commissioner at 
Washington, and in part by the collector. 

With respect to the great mass of the subordinate per- 
sonnel, the appointing power of the head of the department 
is, of course, a pure formality, exercised almost invariably per- 
functorily upon the recommendation of the head of the bu- 
reau, yet the legal requirement of this formality has the result 
of vesting in the departmental offices a control over personnel 
matters which not infrequently falls in large measure into the 
hands of one of the political subordinates who stands close 
to the Secretary.^ A door is thus left open for the entrance 
of political pressure in a quarter which is more susceptible to 
political pressure than is the non-political head of a bureau, 
and which at least is as likely to encourage as to discourage 
any tendency on the part of a political bureau head to yield 
to such pressure. That this result ensues, not merely with 
respect to appointment but perhaps still more with respect to 
promotions, salary increases, reductions, and removals, all of 
which must, by analogy, receive the approval of the Secretary, 
is hardly open to doubt. In the interests not merely of ad- 
ministrative simplicity and decentralization, but of reenforc- 
ing the merit principle, it is desirable that, in every case in 
which appointment by the head of the department (and the 
power over other personnel matters which usually go with ap- 
pointment) is not required by the Constitution, it should be 
vested in the bureau chief. 

Consistency would seem to demand that the appointment 
of all subordinate personnel in the local offices should be vested 
in the hands of the chief of those local offices. Two consid- 
erations, however, must be kept in mind in this connection. 

* Even when personnel matters of the department are handled on 
behalf of the Secretary by a non-political officer, the system favors the 
entrance of political considerations in so far as that officer is further re- 
moved from responsibility for the efficiency of the several services than 
are the heads of those services. While there may be advantages, from 
the standpoint of record systems, of concentrating all personnel records 
in a single office in each department (a point which will subsequently 
receive attention) it by no means follows that any portion of the actual 
power should be vested in any hands other than those of the head of the 
service. 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 153 

In the first place, almost all the chiefs of local offices are at 
the present time purely political appointees of a type peculiarly 
subject to improper partizan and personal influences. For 
this reason it may be best at present not to allow them to ex- 
ercise, uncontrolled by Washington, the power of appoint- 
ment of their local subordinates. Another factor is that in 
not a few of the services the local personnel is regarded as 
eligible for transfer from one locality to another and this is 
a practice which on all accounts should be encouraged and 
strengthened. Where this is the case the local personnel is to 
that extent not merely local but a part of the personnel of the 
entire service and the discretion of the local officer in the 
control of this personnel, therefore, may properly be subject 
to central review. In the light of these considerations, the 
present practice in retaining the appointment of certain classes 
of local employees in the hands of the head of the service at 
Washington, though the initial selection remains with the local 
officer, seems well advised. 

Politics and Salary Increases. — One field of personnel ad- 
ministration in which political, and particularly congressional, 
influence has traditionally and notoriously been active is that 
of salary increases within grade, that is, a mere increase of 
salary not involving a change of duties. There are two rea- 
sons why this has been a favorite point of attack for those 
with "influence." The first is that, unlike an appointment, 
or promotion (that is, a change to higher duties), or transfer, 
which can ordinarily be agitated only when a vacancy exists, 
the time has always been seasonable for an increase in salary. 
Again, in making an appointment, promotion, or transfer, an 
administrative officer, particularly if the position involves 
supervisory functions, must have some regard to the capacity 
for the position of the individual on whose behalf interven- 
tion is made. In the case of salary increases no such con- 
sideration need enter. The only administrative considerations 
which must be heeded are the conservation of appropriations 
and of the morale of the working force. 

In both these respects, the federal personnel system has 



154 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

been fundamentally defective, and still remains so, though 
the work of the Reclassification Commission, discussed in a 
subsequent chapter,^ gives ground for hope that a change is 
to come. In a well ordered personnel system, there are only 
certain dates when the question of salary increases can be con- 
sidered; and at that time the claims of all must be considered 
on an equal basis. Moreover, in a well ordered system, there 
are definite and fairly narrow limits above which the salary 
paid for any given class of work may not be raised ; and such 
limits are not only defined but enforced by a central inde- 
pendent authority. It is the absence of such a central definition 
and enforcement of compensation standards (and the failure, 
in most cases of departmental officers themselves to apply such 
standards) that has made it possible for variations of as much 
as lOO per cent in the compensation paid for the same class 
of work. Where it is possible for an administrative officer 
to pay one $2,000 for the same class and grade of service as 
is being rendered by another for $1,000, it is obvious that 
an employee who has "influence" has a most powerful in- 
centive to employ it as actively as possible. The fixation and 
enforcement of compensation standards, and of procedure for 
determining on an impartial basis the award of periodic in- 
creases within the range permitted — matters discussed from 
the administrative standpoint in subsequent chapters ^ — will 
end one of the most fertile and pernicious sources of political 
intervention in the field of personnel. 

Political Pressure upon Employees by Superior Officers. 
— Another manner in which political considerations may in- 
terfere injuriously in personnel matters is that of the coercion 
of employees by superior officers to render political service in 
the form of making contributions to the party's campaign 
chest or the rendition of party aid in other ways. Such coer- 
cion can be exerted through the withholding of a deserved 
promotion, salary increase, or favorable assignment in the 
case of recalcitrancy, or at the worst through a dropping from 
the rolls. 

'See Chapter VII. 

^ See Chapter IX and Chapter XV, 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE . 155 

Prohibition of Forced Campaign Contributions. — The 

dangers inherent in this situation were early recognized. At 
the outset attention was chiefly directed toward the prevention 
of forced contributions for poHtical purposes. As is well 
known, prior to the enactment of legislation on the subject, 
all federal employees were regularly levied upon by the party 
in power at every election period. Failure to contribute 
meant, at best, denial of all deserved promotion or salary in- 
crease, and, at worst, reduction or removal. 

The first legislation against political contributions in the 
civil service was the act of August 15, 1876, which provided 
that: 

All executive officers or employees of the United States 
not appointed by the President, with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, are prohibited from requesting, giving to, or 
receiving from, any other officer or employee of the Govern- 
ment, any money or property or other thing of value for po- 
litical purposes; and any such officer or employee, who shall 
offend against the provisions of this section shall be at once 
discharged from the service of the United States ; and he shall 
also be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction 
thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding $500. 

It does not appear that this enactment had any particular 
effect. It will be noted that it did not penalize the action of 
a presidential appointee who might request or demand con- 
tributions from his subordinates but only penalized the action 
of a subordinate in acceding to such a demand. The slight 
penalty imposed by the act was hardly calculated to break up 
a practice so deeply rooted and extensive, nor were the district 
attorneys, themselves political officers, likely to exert them- 
selves unduly to enforce these provisions. 

Not until the enactment of the civil service act in 1883 
was an effective statutory prohibition secured. The last five of 
the 15 sections of the act are devoted wholly to the matter of 
political contributions, and remain to this day the whole of 
the federal law on this subject. Of these sections, the most 



156 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

material for the present purpose are Sections ii and 14. 
Taken together their effect is to prohibit any officer of the 
United States, legislative, executive, or judicial (except the 
President) "from soliciting or receiving a contribution from 
or giving a contribution to any other officer or employee of 
the United States for any political purpose." Violation of 
this prohibition is made punishable by a fine not exceeding 
$5,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three 
years. This provision is further enforced, at least morally 
(for from a practical standpoint the reenforcement is very 
slight), by the provision (Section 13) "that no officer or em- 
ployee of the United States mentioned in this act shall dis- 
charge or promote or degrade or in any manner change the 
official rank or compensation of any other officer or employee, 
nor promise or threaten so to do for giving or withholding 
or neglecting to make any contribution of money or any other 
valuable thing for any political purpose." 

From the standpoint of immediate and effective enforce- 
ment, the penal sanction which Congress attached to these pro- 
hibitions would doubtless have remained relatively ineffective 
had it not created at the same time the Civil Service Com- 
mission. The act provided that the Commission might "make 
investigation . . . concerning . . . the action of those in the 
public service in respect to the execution of this act." (Sec- 
tion 2, 4.) The Commission was thus given authority to 
investigate all cases of political contributions levied or given 
in violation of the act, and has displayed from the beginning 
great persistence and energy in running down any cases of 
this character brought to its attention. 

The activities of the Commission brought a considerable, 
indeed a tremendous, improvement in the situation within a 
very few years after the enactment of the law. Never since 
that time have political assessments been levied in the fed- 
eral service on anything like the scale which prevailed previ- 
ously. The history has not been one of continuous progress, 
however. Occasionally with changes of administration or of 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 157 

local chief officers conditions have gone backward in one 
branch or another of the service. On the whole, however, 
progress has been consistent. It would probably be too much 
to say that political assessments have been completely and per- 
manently driven out of the federal service ; but even where they 
may persist or occasionally be revived they are no longer an 
important factor affecting the dismissal, promotion, etc., of 
any large body of employees.^ 

It is impossible to examine the abstracts of the Commis- 
sion's investigations of cases of violation of the statutes 
against political assessments, which are a regular feature of 
the Commission's annual reports, without being driven 
strongly to the conclusion that this statute has hardly ever 
received from district attorneys, or even from the Attorney 
General, that vigorous and impartial enforcement which is 
traditionally awarded to all federal statutes. Case after case 
is to be found in the Commission's records in which a clear 
and deliberate violation of the statute appears to have been 
made out, but which, if taken up at all by the Department of 
Justice, was so feebly handled that either no indictment was 
secured or an acquittal resulted. The obvious explanation is 
that the district attorney is generally a member of the same 
political party as the officer whose prosecution is sought. In 
view of the record it is at least worth considering whether 
the Civil Service Commission should not be vested with in- 
dependent powers of presentation and prosecution on cases of 
this kind, such power to be exercised by it whenever, in its 

^ The effect of the statute was greatly strengthened by the decision 
handed down in 1913 by the United States Court for the Western District 
of Pennsylvania in the case of the United States v. Dutro. In this case 
it was held that if a federal officer received contributions from federal 
employees and delivered or used them for political purposes, he would be 
"concerned in receiving" them and would be guilty of violation of the 
statute. The fact that the defendant "did so without any thought that he 
was violating any statute and felt that he was acting purely as a conveyor 
of these contributions to the political parties for whom they were intended, 
to accommodate those who were making the contributions, and purely as a 
personal matter" did not absolve him from guilt. The principle appears 
to be definitely established, therefore, that a defendant may no longer 
escape punishment by alleging that he received a political contribution as 
a mere agent or messenger for the purpose of turning it over to a political 
organization. 



158 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

judgment, the local prosecuting officer of the government is 
not wholeheartedly seeking a conviction. 
Prohibition of Forced Political Services. — Coercion ma^ 
be exerted by a superior officer not merely to extort a con- 
tribution from the employee but to extort political service of 
one kind or another. To coercion of this type the civil serv- 
ice act offers no effective opposition or restriction, nor has any 
subsequent statute done so. The act indeed lays down the 
principle "that no person in the public service is for that rea- 
son under any obligation to render any political service and 
that he will not be removed or otherwise prejudiced for re- 
fusing to do so"; (Section 2, Second, Fifth) and the rules 
provide that "no person in the executive civil service shall 
use his official authority or influence for the purpose of in- 
terfering with an election or affecting the results thereof" 
(Rule I, i), a provision which has been interpreted by the 
Commission as prohibiting a superior officer from requesting 
or requiring the rendition of any political service or the per- 
formance of political work of any sort by subordinates. But 
there is no penal sanction behind this will, and its effective 
enforcement depends upon the desire of the President and the 
department heads to cooperate. 

To what extent employees are actually called upon by po- 
litical superiors to perform political service it is difficult to 
say. In view, however, of the relatively insignificant num- 
ber of complaints on this hand which reach the Commission, 
it seems fairly clear that violations of the rule are relatively 
infrequent. 

Like the local federal prosecuting officers, the depart- 
mental authorities also have too frequently displayed an ex- 
cessive tenderness towards the superior officer who has been 
detected by the Commission in a violation of the law prohibit- 
ing political assessments or of the rule prohibiting political 
discrimination. The Commission consequently, on several oc- 
casions, has recommended to the President that the rules be 
so amended as to make it mandatory upon the departments to 
act in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 159 

in any matter involving the violation of these provisions of 
the law and rules, such recommendation to be subject to re- 
view only by the President. It is hard to see any objection 
to this proposal. It is not open to the exception which may 
be taken to the injection of an outside body into the matter of 
removals or punishments in the service generally, as dividing 
responsibility for administration. Here the responsibility for 
the enforcement of the law and rules is primarily upon the 
Civil Service Commission. Indeed, it is rather the present 
arrangement which divides responsibility in that while the 
Commission is supposed to be responsible for the enforcement 
of the law and rules it has no effective means of discharging 
that responsibility but is at the mercy of the departmental 
officers. 

Prohibition of Coercion by Persons Outside the Service. 
— Manifestly the official superiors of an employee are not the 
only persons in a position to coerce him to make political 
contributions or to render other political service. Equally ef- 
fective is coercion exercised by a person not holding any of- 
ficial position but known by the employee to be of authority 
or power in the party organization to which the political 
superior officer belongs. A threat of demotion or dismissal 
or a promise of promotion by such an individual would be 
fully as effective a means of coercing the employee as a threat 
or promise by the superior officer himself. 

It rnight be thought, therefore, that Congress had extended 
to the employee the same statutory protection against the pos- 
sibility of coercion by persons of this type that it has against 
coercion by superior officers. The only statutory provision, 
however, which condemns such coercion is that of the civil 
service act, "that no person shall in any room or building 
occupied in the discharge of official duties by any officer or 
employee of the United States mentioned in this act or in any 
navy yard, fort, or arsenal, solicit in any manner whatever 
or receive any contribution of money or any other thing of 
value for any political purpose whatever." (Section 12.) 

Both the Courts and the Commission have given to this 



i6o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

prohibition the widest possible interpretation ; ^ but by no 
stretch of interpretation can it be extended to cover a visit by 
the party worker to the employee at his home. 

The Commission has recommended repeatedly to Congress 
a statute which would prohibit the solicitation of a political 
contribution from an officer or employee in the Government 
by any person whatsoever, but the proposal has never received 
any consideration from Congress. The enactment would seem 
to be plainly called for, and should cover, moreover, the solici- 
tation of political service of any kind. 

Restrictions on Voluntary Political Activity. — In contrast 
to the question of the coercion of the employee into rendering 
political contributions or service, the question of the restric- 
tions, if any, which shall be placed upon his voluntary activities 
is indeed a difficult one. The line between contributions or 
service rendered as the result of coercion and that which 
is really voluntary may be and often is impossible to 
draw. No word of threat or promise may be spoken by the 
superior officer, yet the employee may know perfectly well 
that a contribution or activity on his part will earn its due 
reward and conversely that failure to contribute, or inactivity, 

^The Commission by a minute adopted March 23, 1897; held that 
addressing a letter to a government employee in a government building 
soliciting political contributions is a solicitation in that building within the 
meaning of section 12 of the civil service act., and in this opinion vi^as sus- 
tained by the advice of eminent counsel (See 14th Report, pp. 147-T55), 
but notwithstanding numerous violations no opportunity arose of having 
the question judicially determined until 1907, when an indictment was 
obtained against Edward S. Thayer at Dallas, Texas. A demurrer was 
interposed to the indictment and was sustained on the ground that the 
act required the personal presence in the government building of the 
solicitor. Appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, and the judgment of 
the lower court was reversed. (United States v. Thayer, 209 U. S., 39.) 
The opinion of the court, which was delivered by Justice Holmes on 
March 9, 1908, establishes definitely the proposition that solicitation by 
letter or circular addressed to and delivered by mail or otherwise to an 
officer or employee of the United States at the office or building in which 
he is employed in the discharge of his official duties is a solicitation "in 
a room or building" within the meaning of this section, the solicitation 
taking place where the letter was received. (See also United States v. 
Smith, 163 Fed. 926, where the letter was personally delivered.) 

The Commission holds that the sending through the mails of letters 
to government employees soliciting contributions, and omitting the street 
or home address from the envelopes with the result that the letters are 
delivered by the postal authorities in the government building in which 
they are employed, constitutes a violation of this section. 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE i6i 

will bring swift and sure retribution. So long, therefore, as 
the chief officers are political appointees, particularly in local 
offices, it is next to impossible to be sure that any political 
activity on an employee's part is purely voluntary — that is to 
say, is rendered without any prospect or hope of reward or any 
fear of punishment. 

Consequently, in the attempt completely to eliminate poli- 
tics from public personnel systems, the only practicable course 
has seemed to many to be virtually complete prohibition of 
political activity on the part of non-political employees. This 
radical step was taken in the federal service in 1907, when 
the rules were amended by President Roosevelt to provide 
that "persons ... in the competitive classified service while 
retaining the right to vote and to express privately their opin- 
ions on all political subjects shall take no active part in political 
management or in political campaigns," ^ and by subsequent 

^ This rule is subject to the following exceptions: "Whenever in the 
opinion of the Secretary of the Nav}' a strict enforcement of the pro- 
visions of section i, Rule I, of the civil service rules would influence the 
result of a local election the issue of which materially aff'ects the local 
welfare of the Government employees in the vicinity of any navy yard or 
station, the Civil Service Commission may, on recommendation of the 
Secretary of the Navy, and after such investigation as it may deem neces- 
sary, permit the active participation of the employees of the yard or 
station in such local election. In the exercise of the privilege which may 
be conferred hereunder, persons affected must not neglect their official 
duties nor cause public scandal by their activity." (Executive Order, May 
14, 1909.) 

"Employees of the executive civil service permanently residing in the 
following incorporated municipalities adjacent to the District of Columbia 
will not be prohibited from becoming candidates for or holding municipal 
office in such corporations : 

"In Maryland — Takoma Park, Kensington, Garrett Park, Chevy Chase, 
Glen Echo, Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Somerset, Capitol Heights, Laurel. 

"In Virginia — Falls Church, Vienna, Herndon. 

"Employees of the executive civil service, qualified to vote at a munici- 
pal election of the town of North Beach, Maryland (a summer resort, 
practically uninhabited during eight months of the year, and inhabited 
during the other four months almost exclusively by residents of Washing- 
ton), will not be prohibited from, becoming candidates for or holding 
municipal office in or under such town of North Beach, Maryland. 

"This order, which is recommended by the Civil Service Commission, 
is based upon the facts that a considerable number of the residents and 
taxpayers of the towns mentioned are employed in the Government service, 
that service as municipal officers in such town should in no way involve 
general partisan political activity, and that the principle of home rule and 
local self-government justifies such participation." (Executive Order, 
February 14, 1912, as amended by Orders of May 5, 1914, May 26, 1914, 
and March 9, 1818.) 



i62 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

departmental regulations similar limitations have been placed 
on unclassified laborers. 

Pursuant to its general power to "make investigations and 
report upon all matters touching the enforcement and effect 
of said rules," the Civil Service Commission, since 1907, has 
investigated scores of cases of political activity. In these in- 
vestigations the phrase "active part in political management 
or in political campaigns" has been given a very wide mean- 
ing by the Commission. Some of the forms of activity which 
the Commission has thus held to be forbidden by this pro- 
vision of the rule are : 

1. Candidacy for service as delegate, alternate, or proxy in any 

political convention or as an officer or employee of the same. 

2. Service on or for any political committee or similar organization. 

3. Service in preparing for, organizing, or conducting a political 

meeting or rally, addressing such a meeting, or taking any 
other active part in the same. 

4. Engaging in political discussions or conferences while on duty 

or in public places. 

5. Canvassing a district or soliciting political support for any party, 

faction, candidate, or measure. 

6. Offensive activity at primary and regular elections, soliciting 

votes, assisting voters to mark ballots, or in getting out the 
voters on registration or election days, acting as accredited 
checker, watcher, or challenger of any party or faction or 
assisting in counting the vote or engaging in any other activity 
at the polls except the marking and depositing of his own 
ballot. 

7. Rendering service for pay, such as transporting voters to and 

from the polls and candidates on convassing tours even though 
rendered without regard to political party. 

8. Service as an election officer, except in positions in which refusal 

to serve is penalized by the election law of the state. 

9. Connection editorially, managerially, or financially with any po- 

litical newspaper or writing for publication or publishing any 
letter or article, signed or unsigned, in favor of or against any 
political party, candidate or faction, or measure. 

10. Soliciting, collecting, receiving, or otherwise handling or dis- 

bursing political cpntributions. 

11. Candidacy for a nomination or for election to any national, state, 

county, or municipal office.'- 

^ The actual holding of local office prohibited by Executive Order of 
January 17, 1873, is applicable to all federal employees, including presi- 
dential appointees and laborers. The order is as follows : 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 163 

12. Betting or wagering upon the results of primary and general 

elections. 

13. Service as a legislative agent or lobbyist and all activities in 

connection with direct legislation and proposed constitutional 
or statutory provisions, national or state, and with proposed 
municipal ordinances, regulations, and other enactments. 

14. Distributing campaign literature, badges or buttons and wearing 

such badges or buttons while on duty. 

15. Circulating political petitions. 

16. Accepting political leadership or becoming prominently identified 

with any political movement, party or faction. 

"Persons holding any federal civil office by appointment under the 
Constitution and laws of the United States will be expected, while holding 
such office, not to accept or hold any office under any State or Territorial 
government, or under the charter or ordinances of any municipal corpora- 
tion; and, further, that the acceptance or continued holding of any such 
State, Territorial, or municipal office, whether elective or by appointment, 
by any person holding civil office as aforesaid under the Government of 
the United States, other than judicial offices under the Constitution of 
the United States, will be deem.ed a vacation of the federal office held by 
such person, and will be taken to be and will be treated as a resignation 
by such federal officers of his commission or appointment in the service of 
the United States." 

By this order and by a supplementary order issued January 28, 1873, 
the following local offices are excepted from the rule : 

1. Offices of justices of the peace, or notaries public, and of com- 
missioners to take acknowledgment of deeds, of bail, or to administer 
oaths. 

2. Deputy marshals of the United States, when these offices are con- 
ferred upon sheriffs or deputy sheriffs. 

3. Positions and service on boards of education, school committees, 
public libraries, religious, or eleemosynary institutions incorporated or 
established or sustained by state or municipal authority. 

4. Officers of the state or territorial militia. 

5. Unpaid service in local or municipal fire departments. 

By subsequent orders the following have also been excepted : 

1. Employees on Indian reservations, appointed under state authority 
as deputy sheriffs or constables, as the requirements of the service demand. 

2. Small salaried positions in municipal fire departments. 

3. State and territorial positions by officers and employees of the 
Department of Agriculture if deemed necessary by the Secretary of Agri- 
culture to secure a more efficient administration (Executive Order, June 

26, 1907). , ^ , r J 

4. Special agencies under the Bureau of the Census when conferred 
upon state and county officials for the collection of cotton statistics 
(Executive Order, Aug. 4, 1909)- . , „ , 

5. Temporary office of moderator of a town m.eetmg and offices ot a 
like character (Executive Order, Aug. 24, 1912). 

6 Deputy state fish or game wardens' positions, without compensa- 
tion if conferred upon employees of the Reclamation Service and the 
National Park Service, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior 
(Executive Order, July 9, iQM)- , _ ^ . -.u .i, 

7 Appointments of employees of the Treasury Department, with the 
approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, on state, county, or municipal 
councils of defense for purposes of mobilizing and conserving the re- 
sources of the country (Executive Order, April 14, 1917)- 



i64 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The rule does not prohibit employees in the classified serv- 
ice from : 

1. Attendance as spectators at conventions, attending and voting at 

primary meetings, caucuses, political committees, and similar 
occasions provided the employees do not participate in the 
deliberations, address them, act as ofhcers, or take a prominent 
part in the same. 

2. Membership in political clubs provided the employees are not 

officers, committee members, or delegates or representatives to 
other organizations. 

3. Making political contributions to any committee, organization, or 

person not employed by the United States. 

4. Candidacy of an employee for promotion or transfer to an un- 

classified office, with the consent of his department, provided 
he does not use his official authority or influence in political 
matters, neglects his duty, causes public scandal, or semblance 
of coercion upon his fellow employees. 

The rule does not specifically prohibit classified employees 
from making contributions for political purposes, and the 
Commission has not interpreted it as embracing such con- 
tributions. Nor has the Commission ever recommended that 
the rule be so extended. It is difficut to see, however, why 
the actual contribution of cash does not fall more clearly under 
the head of "active part in poHtical management or in po- 
litical campaigns" than do' some of the things proscribed by 
the Commission, 

The failure of President Roosevelt to include the making 
of political contributions in the rule is doubtless to be explained 
by the fact that what appears to have been in his mind was 
principally the prevention of a public display of partisanship 
by the employee which he regarded as unseemly, rather than 
the suppression of political influence in the administration of 
the personnel system itself. ~ 

It is interesting to note that in a letter to the Civil Service 
Commission under date of June 13, 1902, in which he first 
laid down in almost identical wording the principle which 
he afterwards incorporated into the rule, President Roosevelt 
advanced as the reason for prohibiting classified employees 
from political activity merely that they were "precisely the 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 165 

same reasons that a judge, an army officer, a regular soldier, 
or a policeman is debarred from taking such active part." To 
point out the fundamental respects in which the ordinary clas- 
sified employee differs from a judge, or from any member of 
the armed forces of the state, in his relation to the political 
government, would be to expound the obvious. It is believed 
that so far as classified employees are concerned the only real 
justification for the drastic prohibition of political activity now 
found is the need for the complete suppression of all possi- 
bilities of the entrance of political factors. Did not the rea- 
son here advanced exist, that is to say, were the personnel 
system so thoroughly safeguarded from politics that political 
activity on the part of the employee could redound in no pos- 
sible way to his advantage in the service or the failure to be 
politically active work to his disadvantage, it is difficult to 
see why there would be any impropriety in an engineer, a phy- 
sician, a clerk or any other non-political employee of the fed- 
eral government taking fully as active a part in political life 
as any other citizen. 

Looked at from any angle, the limitations upon the rights 
of political activity now enforced in the federal service are an 
extremely severe infringement upon the personal liberty of 
the employee and are to be justified only by the overpowering 
necessities of the personnel system. The mere appearance of 
unseemliness would hardly constitute sufficient ground upon 
which to abrogate the political rights of several hundred thou- 
sand citizens. 

The Civil Service Commission from the first has been a 
staunch supporter of the rule under discussion, as may be 
judged from the comprehensive meaning which it has given 
to the term "active part in political management or political 
campaigns." The Commission has never published an ex- 
press statement of the reasons which it believes to justify 
the rule. It is believed, however, that were such a statement 
to be issued, the Commission's endorsement would rest rather 
upon the grounds here taken — the impossibility in the political 
conditions now surrounding the service of preventing coercion 



i66 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

by superior officers by any means other than this rule — rather 
than upon the grounds apparently had in mind by President 
Roosevelt in promulgating the order. 

So long as the chief officers of the government, especially 
in the local establishments, continue to be selected upon a po- 
litical basis instead of upon merit, and so long as adequate 
procedures, particularly in the field of promotion, salary in- 
crease, removal, demotion, and the like have not been developed 
in the service to minimize the possibility that these processes 
will be governed by political considerations, it is difficult to see 
how the present restrictions on the political activity of classi- 
fied employees can be dispensed with without grave danger of 
a gradual but certain return of that political influence which 
the enforcement of this rule had undoubtedly done a great deal 
to suppress. The rule is thus to be regarded at the present 
time as a necessary evil. 

The removal of all restrictions upon the political activities 
of employees is one of the demands of the National Federation 
of Federal Employees. It is not, however, a demand which 
has been or is likely to be pressed vigorously ; and one gathers 
the impression that it has been placed in the Federation's 
program rather as an expression of a sentimental objection on 
the part of the employees to any restrictions upon their political 
rights as citizens than to a well defined intention to effect their 
removal. Similarly the so-called reconstruction program of 
the American Federation of Labor, adopted at its annual con- 
vention in 1 9 19, declared that public employees "must not be 
limited to the exercise of their rights as citizens." No prac- 
tical step has yet been taken, however, by either organization 
for the abrogation of present restrictions. 

In addition to the restrictions upon the activity of classi- 
fied employees and unclassified laborers there are certain re- 
strictions enforced upon the political activity even of the po- 
litical officers of the Government (other than those bearing 
upon the coercion of subordinates already reviewed). These 
regulations, which are in the form of executive orders, have 
a moral rather than a legal force. Their main purpose is to 



ELIMINATION OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE 167 

prevent the- exhibition by federal office holders of "offensive 
partisanship." Into a discussion of these regulations or canons 
of conduct it is not relevant to enter here ; for they are intended 
not to safeguard the personnel system, but rather to maintain 
the proper relation of the political administration to the citi- 
zenship. 



PART II 

THE PROBLEM OF FEDERAL PERSONNEL 
ADMINISTRATION 

CHAPTER VI 

INTRODUCTION 

The technical, positive problem of personnel administra- 
tion in the federal service is, in many respects, merely a spe- 
cial phase of the general problem of personnel administration, 
as encountered in all large organizations, private as well as 
governmental. In public services, however, there are certain 
factors not encountered in private enterprises ; and in the tech- 
nical branches of the federal service special factors are pres- 
ent that are not encountered in states or municipalities. No 
program of personnel administration for the federal service 
can be successful which ignores these factors, and an attempt 
to force upon the service personnel methods derived from other 
and dissimilar fields, without giving due weight to these spe- 
cial factors, is doomed to failure. 

Special Factors in the Federal Personnel Problem. — The 
need of shaping the methods of recruitment primarily with an 
eye to excluding political considerations in selection common 
to all public personnel systems, and the need still found in the 
federal service of safeguarding the exercise of administrative 
discretion in all other personnel matters, are not the sole re- 
spects in which the problem in the federal service differs from 
that of private enterprise. The absence of the profit factor 
in governmental operations is a prime difference. On the 
one hand, this makes for a less vigorous and ruthless appli- 
cation of the principles and methods dictated by an impersonal 

i68 



INTRODUCTION 169 

calculation of operating efficiency. The tendency, unless spe- 
cial measures are taken to combat it, will be for the admin- 
istrative officer in the public service to be influenced more 
largely by consideration for the employee than by considera- 
tion for the good of the service, if the two come into conflict. 
From still another standpoint the absence of the element of 
profit is of primary importance. The commercial enterprise 
in a competitive field must maintain a certain standard of ef- 
ficiency, which implies a certain standard of personnel, or it 
will cease to exist. Hence a private enterprise in a competi- 
tive field may not reduce the attractiveness of the conditions 
of service below the prevailing level without losing its better 
personnel and facing failure. A public service, however, may 
continue to exist almost indefinitely despite a sub-standard 
personnel. The public service thus possesses no automatic 
check against the development and persistence of sub-standard 
conditions; and such a development must consequently be ex- 
pressly and plan fully guarded against. 

The monopolistic nature of many of the activities of the 
public service, which is especially characteristic of the federal 
service is another closely related matter. In competitive pri- 
vate enterprise if the conditions of employment become un- 
favorable, the better employees find other places, and thus a 
symptom becomes apparent which generally leads to correction: 
In many branches of the federal organization no such general 
withdrawal takes place. The personnel of long service in those 
organizations, however valuable to the government and how- 
ever deserving of reward at its hands, may be retained almost 
indefinitely, if the government chooses, though not, of course, 
at a maximum of usefulness, despite wholly unjust conditions 
of employment, simply because these employees have no other 
market for their peculiar experience. Unless special provi- 
sion is made to prevent such a development, these classes of 
employees in a public service almost invariably suffer in their 
conditions of employment over a long period as compared with 
those classes of employees whose experience in the public serv- 
ice is an asset, or at least not a liability, in the business world. 



I70 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The failure to take such special measures in the federal service 
is reflected in the wholly unjust relative conditions of com- 
pensation prevailing in the administrative and specialized cler- 
ical as opposed to the mechanical and labor positions in the 
federal service. 

The political appointment and the resulting short and un- 
certain tenure of the heads and assistant heads of the executive 
departments and of many of the bureau chiefs and local chief 
officers is a factor which makes of particular importance a 
principle of personnel administration which should control in 
all large organizations, whether public or private. Too much 
reliance should not be placed upon unwritten law, which leaves 
the shaping of practice and procedure largely in the hands of 
the administrative officer. If a practice has proved its worth, 
it should be published with due formality and made of per- 
manent record and should be regarded as constituting a part 
of the understanding of the management with the employees 
as to the conditions of employment, to be changed or departed 
from thereafter, especially if in any way unfavorable from 
the employees' standpoint, only for compelling reasons and 
under proper conditions of publicity. Because of the brevity 
of tenure of the political administrative officers and the need 
for protection against political influences and for enlisting pub- 
lic confidence in the fairness of the system, a greater degree 
of formalization of method may be required in respect to cer- 
tain personnel practices in the federal service than would be 
required in the case of private organizations. 

A further factor which distinguishes the problem of pub- 
lic employment from that of private employment is the popular 
feeling, deeply rooted, that the administration of the public 
personnel system should work with justice and fairness towards 
all members of the community. The outstanding phase of 
this belief is that every one has an equal right to enter public 
employment, and that consequently the methods of selection 
must be such as will not merely insure the selection of the 
most capable, but give to every person an equal opportunity 
to demonstrate his qualifications and to receive recognition in 



INTRODUCTION 171 

exact accordance therewith. Not only in the matter of ap- 
pointment does this feehng manifest itself. In every phase 
of public personnel administration, in promotion, transfer, 
lay-off, and the like, it is equally general. 

Closely related to, and yet quite distinct from the require- 
ment of obvious distributive justice is the principle that in 
the selection of personnel for service at Washington the se- 
vere political divisions of the country should be given equal 
or proportional recognition. This principle has long had 
recognition in the federal personnel system, having been pre- 
scribed by the civil service law. In existing practice the state 
is the unit employed in thus apportioning geographically the 
posts at Washington, but the proposal has even been pressed 
that each Congressional district should be recognized as a 
distinct claimant for a share. There are doubtless reasons 
why the recruitment of federal employees at Washington too 
exclusively from certain sections of the country is undesirable, 
but it is equally obvious that if pushed beyond reasonable lim- 
its, this desire to apportion the membership of the adminis- 
trative personnel geographically may become a serious obstacle 
to efficient personnel administration. At its proper place the 
existing practice of the government in this respect is examined 
fully. Here it is desired merely to point to this as an addi- 
tional element which complicates the problem of federal per- 
sonnel administration. 

Finally, it is not sufficient merely that the personnel meth- 
ods of the government should work substantial justice as be- 
tween aspirants for appointment or promotion. The fact that 
they do so work must be made apparent to the public ; a gen- 
eral belief must be developed that the methods employed are 
as impersonal and fair as they are in fact. Such a belief is 
vitally necessary to the fullest development of the federal per- 
sonnel system. Without it the service loses Immensely in its 
attractiveness to the self-respecting worker. Nothing is more 
trying to the government employee than to encounter in his 
daily contacts a belief that the system of which he is a part 
is overrun, or even tainted, with favoritism and injustice. 



172 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

That this belief may be without real foundation hardly makes 
its existence any less distasteful. Even more serious perhaps 
is its effect on recruitment. Unquestionably able applicants 
have been deterred in many cases from attempting to enter 
the federaf service by an obscure feeling, generally arising 
from no just cause, that the cards, so to speak, were stacked 
against the applicant who possessed no "friend" or "backing." 

Hence in the formulation of federal personnel practice it 
is not enough that the methods laid down should insure fair- 
ness and impersonal judgment as between individuals. It 
is almost equally essential that all operations be conducted in 
the light of the fullest and freest publicity, so that all per- 
sons, whether applicants, employees, or merely interested mem- 
bers of the public may at all times satisfy themselves that the 
regulations and procedures laid down are being observed in 
fact. This fairly obvious requirement is here stressed with 
what may seem unnecessary length. The reason is that it has 
been, of all the non-technical requirements of a sound federal 
personnel system, the most sadly neglected up to the present 
time. 

The last and perhaps most fundamental difference between 
the federal service and private enterprise that requires special 
comment is that in private enterprise the higher officers are 
generally selected solely because of their capacity for their 
work and hence can safely be entrusted with a large meas- 
ure of authority In selecting and promoting their subordinate 
employees; whereas in the federal service they are often se- 
lected because of their past work for their political party, and 
if entrusted with authority in selecting and promoting the 
employees under their jurisdiction they will be guided more 
by the interests of the party than by the needs of the under- 
taking. So long as this method of selecting upper officers on 
political grounds is permitted to continue, the methods of 
personnel administration in the government service must dif- 
fer radically from the methods used In private enterprise. 

The complete revision of the compensation standards now 
prevailing for the Important executive positions in the fed- 



INTRODUCTION 173 

eral service and their more or less close assimilation to the 
standards prevailing for similar positions in private industry 
is an indispensable prerequisite to the improvement of the 
caliber of the executive personnel. But this alone will by no 
means be sufficient. Only if all the conditions of employment 
are correct, and particularly the conditions respecting security 
of tenure and congeniality of work, will the proper material 
for important executive positions be recruited and retained. 
To men and women of this type a large freedom of action, 
with a commensurate responsibility for results, is the chief ele- 
ment of attractiveness in their employment. As has been 
pointed out already, the basis upon which the entire federal 
administrative structure has been more or less consistently 
reared — that of detailed prescription by Congress, months in 
advance, of innumerable minutiae of administrative detail, and 
the centralization of responsibility for all final decisions at 
the highest practicable point in the administrative hierarchy 
— has a diametrically opposite tendency. Not until a thor- 
oughgoing reform has been effected on both these heads will 
the executive administrative positions in the federal service 
compete with those in industry in attractiveness to persons of 
the executive type. 

The Aim and Scope of Personnel Administration. — The 
aim of personnel administration may be defined as the recruit- 
ment of capable workers and their retention under conditions 
which will develop their maximum usefulness. From this 
obvious definition flows equally obviously the necessity, on 
the one hand, for establishing such conditions of employment 
as will attract to and retain in the service the class of personnel 
desired, and will maintain their zeal and good will; and on 
the other, for the use by the directing personnel of such meth- 
ods in recruitment, assignment, transfer, promotion, and re- 
moval of the employees under their direction as will insure 
that each individual is placed to the best advantage. Of these 
two phases, the first, relating to conditions of employment, 
may be termed the substantive and the second, relating to meth- 
ods of administration, the adjective. The first is fundamental. 



174 - THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Unless the basic conditions of employment involving compen- 
sation, working time, opportunity for congenial work and 
advancement, security of tenure, protection against arbitrary 
action by superiors, and other like elements, are sound, no 
refinement of technique on the part of the personnel admin- 
istrator can save the personnel system from mediocrity, if not 
from substantial failure. 

The methods of personnel administration, moreover, are 
themselves a part of the conditions of employment. Com- 
pensation and working time standards, methods of selecting 
for reassignment and promotion are of little value unless 
skillfully applied and administered; and security of tenure and 
safeguards against arbitrary action, designed for the benefit 
of the efficient and loyal employee, in feeble or unskilled hands, 
may become a shield for the shirker and malingerer, resulting 
in a clogging of the service with deadwood and a basic impair- 
ment of its attractiveness to the desirable type of employee. 

Hence it is impracticable in examining the problem of per- 
sonnel administration, particularly as it presents itself in so 
large a system as the federal service, to consider separately 
the questions of employment conditions and of personnel meth- 
ods. With respect to each part of the personnel problem they 
must be considered concurrently. 

Procedure in Developing a Proper Personnel System. — 
In seeking to arrange the several parts of the personnel prob- 
lem for orderly presentation, it is difficult, if not impossible, 
to discover a sequence in which each part is based wholly on 
what precedes and is, in turn, fundamental to what follows. 
The various phases of a personnel system react upon each 
other. It seems best, therefore, to approach them in the order 
in which one would proceed were one planning, in advance of 
any actual execution, a theoretically complete personnef system 
and formulating all the principles and practices which should 
govern its operation. 

Needless to say, a personnel system is seldom if ever ac- 
tually thus developed. In most large organizations the sys- 
tem of personnel, like other phases of administration, is shaped 



INTRODUCTION 175 

by current determinations, made in response to what seem to 
be current needs; and when a particular defect appears a rem- 
edy is applied that may or may not be sufficiently general in 
scope adequately to correct the difficulty. Such has been pre- 
eminently the history of the federal system. On that account, 
doubtless, it will be all the more useful to approach the cur- 
rent system from the theoretical point of view, and thus to 
develop most clearly the manner and the extent of its diver- 
gence for the theoretical ideal. 

The first step in the construction of a well ordered per- 
sonnel system is the systematic classification of the personnel 
required and the determination of the compensation to be at- 
tached to each class. The next step is to determine which of 
the positions listed is normally to be filled by recruitment from 
outside the service, and which by selection from within the 
service, whether by promotion or transfer. This question of 
selection from within as opposed to recruitment from without 
is perhaps the most basic of all the general questions which 
the construction of a personnel system presents. Upon its 
solution will depend in greater or less degree the decision 
taken on each of the other major questions presented. Once 
settled, the methods and practices to be followed in applying 
each of these two methods of selection must be determined. 
After positions are assumed to be filled, the next question is 
what practices shall be adopted to stimulate the individual 
worker to zeal and productivity; and the cognate question of 
the measures to be taken to check positive inefficiency or mis- 
conduct. Next is the question, related to the last, but quite 
distinct from it, of the system to be provided to relieve the 
service of those disabled through age or accident. Finally, 
the question is presented of the measures which may be taken 
to elevate the general level of interest, health, contentment, 
and technical efficiency. These constitute the primary, positive 
problems of personnel administration, each more or less dis- 
tinct yet each intimately bound up with the others. 

Of no less importance than the development of the prin- 
ciples to be applied to each of the problems thus defined is the 



176 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

determination of who shall be charged with their formulation 
and application. To what extent should Congress itself at- 
tempt to do this, and to what extent should it be left to the 
President, to a central personnel agency, or to the depart- 
ments? And, in the case of each authority, to what extent 
should the body of the personnel itself, whether acting through 
officially constituted organs, or through organizations stand- 
ing outside of the official structure, be consulted with or given 
a share in the determination? 

The Problem of Personnel Control. — The need for the 
establishment of means of controlling administrative officers 
in respect to the appointment, promotion, or dismissal of em- 
ployees with a view to eliminating political and personnel 
administrators has been pointed out. The aggregate of such 
restrictions frequently goes by the name of civil service con- 
trol. Since such civil service control is negative and restric- 
tive, it obviously should be limited to what is strictly neces- 
sary. What those limits are will depend upon factors which 
differ from service to service and from time to time, such as 
the state of political morality, the character of the chief ad- 
ministrators and the method of their selection, and the im- 
portance of the work to be accomplished by the subordinate 
personnel. The degree of civil service control necessary at 
any particular point in the personnel system is thus variable. 
Unfortunately, civil service control, necessarily based upon 
laws, rules, and regulations, tends to become static and fixed, 
so that it is exercised for a considerable time after the con- 
ditions which called it forth have changed or disappeared. So 
long as its extent is substantially proportionate to the dangers 
of political and personal favoritism to be overcome, it ad- 
vances correct personnel administration; but once restrictive 
control goes beyond this point, it becomes a hindrance. 

The delimitation and the current readjustment of the 
proper boundaries of civil service control thus present one of 
the most difficult problems of public personnel administration ; 
and it can be solved only by a careful and continuing study 
of the actual conditions of political life which the civil service 



INTRODUCTION I77 

control is designed to meet. In the present study of the fed- 
eral personnel system no attempt is made to define a priori the 
precise degree of such control which should be imposed. The 
eflfort is rather to study, in connection with each point of per- 
sonnel procedure at which political favoritism may enter, the 
past, present, and probable future conditions of political pres- 
sure at that point, and to make recommendations for civil 
service control accordingly. 

The Need for Special Organization for Personnel Ad- 
ministration. — A final characteristic of the problem of 
personnel administration, often lost sight of in public em- 
ployment, though gaining increasing recognition in private 
enterprise, is that it calls for specialized attention on the part 
of officers specifically designated for the work. Necessarily, 
of course, the final decision in matters of personnel must rest 
largely with the administrator responsible for results. He 
cannot be held responsible if he is compelled to employ peo- 
ple whom he deems unsuitable, or if he is unduly restrained 
from exercising his own discretion in promoting, removing, 
disciplining, and otherwise controlling the employees under 
his direction. In personnel administration, however, much 
more than this is needed. The administrative officer is prone 
to regard the employees under his jurisdiction merely as in- 
strumentalities for producing results. He does not have time 
or frequently, natural bent, to view them as potential re- 
sources of the service, whose development for higher useful- 
ness in the service is always to be kept in mind equally with 
their present utility. Nor is he likely to give sufficient con- 
sideration to the purely personal and human aspects of the 
matter, the desire of the employee for advancement, and his 
dissatisfaction with his employment conditions. Hence, 
he is as likely as not to overlook opportunities for devel- 
oping latent material and for adding to the contentment and 
happiness, and hence to the morale of the service. Nor in 
the formulation of personnel policies does he always consider 
long-time values for the service as a whole, as against im- 
mediate results. 



178 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The employment manager or personnel manager, now so 
commonly found in private enterprise, has come into being, 
to give special consideration to personnel matters, in respect 
both to general policies and to actions affecting individuals. 
The specific functions entrusted to the employment depart- 
ment of a large private enterprise, and its organization within 
the several operating divisions of the enterprise, are matters 
which vary widely from one concern to another. But the gen- 
eral theory on which the expenditure for the services of the 
employment manager and his assistants is justified is the same 
— that it furnishes the necessary additional assurance that in 
the desire for immediate results in production, the interests of 
the enterprise in a well trained, advantageously assigned per- 
sonnel shall not be neglected. 

In the federal service, as will appear in the discussion of 
the specific aspects of personnel administration contained in 
the following chapters, the need for the employment, or per- 
sonnel manager, as herein conceived, as yet has received vir- 
tually no recognition. Some officers have titles which appar- 
ently imply that their function is that of an employment man- 
ager, but on examination it is usually found that their duties 
are confined to the maintenance of personnel records and to 
insistence on the observance of the rules and regulations re- 
garding their performance. 

Changes in practice and procedure are suggested at not a 
few points in the following pages. In hardly any cases can 
the advantages of the method proposed be realized merely by 
an amendment to the formal rules and regulations. They are 
the fruit only of consistent and zealous effort by an officer 
studious to improve the employment system. Unless the 
function of employment management is substantially developed 
in the federal service many otherwise curable defects will 
remain. On the other hand, should that development take 
place, a substantial improvement will unquestionably result, 
not merely in those respects to which attention is called in the 
succeeding chapters but over the whole field of personnel 
administration. 



INTRODUCTION 179 

Although in private practice the function of employment 
management is usually entrusted to a single individual who 
makes it his sole concern, it is by no means indispensable that 
such should be the case. In the federal service, doubtless, 
much can be accomplished merely by developing special com- 
mittees and bodies of administrative officers, either for formu- 
lating policies respecting personnel or for taking action in 
matters affecting particular individuals. The essential point 
is to make the function of personnel management distinct from 
operating administration and to develop a separate organiza- 
tion for the performance of that function, whether by utiliz- 
ing existing officers or by engaging special officers for this 
particular purpose. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE CLASSIFICATION AND STANDARDIZATION OF 
POSITIONS AND SALARIES 

The fundamental basis of an efficient public personnel sys- 
tem is a logical and systematic classification and standardiza- 
tion of all positions comprehended by such a system and of 
the compensations attaching to the several positions therein 
set forth. By this is meant that there must be established by 
statute or administrative action a formal enumeration of all 
positions required in order that the activities of the govern- 
ment to which it relates may be properly performed, with a 
description of the duties and responsibilities of each position, 
the qualifications required of its incumbent and the compen- 
sation attaching to it; that these several positions shall be 
classified in groups and sub-groups according to their charac- 
ter and within which they must be graded according to the 
relative degrees of experience, skill, and responsibilities re- 
quired of their holders; and, finally, that provision be made 
for the current revision of this classification as need therefor 
arises. Not until this is done, and done properly, is it pos- 
sible to handle in a satisfactory manner any of the major 
problems of personnel administration, recruitment, promotion, 
allocation of duties, determination of personnel needs, etc. 

In a small undertaking the determination of the qualifica- 
tions, duties, and compensation is commonly and satis fiactorily 
made whenever occasion arises for filling a vacancy, making 
a promotion, or increasing a salary. In these cases the de- 
termining factor is the value attached to the services of the 
individual involved. As the organization expands, this method 
usually persists. It soon becomes apparent, however, that, 
despite the seeming common sense of this method, it results 

i8o 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES i8i 

in wide variations in compensation for the same work and in 
undue discrepancies between the pay for different kinds of 
work. It is then found that, if these inequalities are to be 
avoided, the compensation rates to be attached to each posi- 
tion must be determined on the basis of duties of positions 
without regard to the individuals occupying them. A lim- 
ited variation in the precise pay for a position may be made, 
of course, to provide for clearly defined variations in efficiency 
and length of service, but the "rates established and the re- 
quirements in respect to efficiency and length of service must 
be made without regard to any particular individual. As the 
organization becomes larger and its activities more varied it 
becomes increasingly necessary to fix compensation on the 
basis of duties and to determine and classify positions on this 
basis, if anything like substantial justice is to be done between 
individual employees and compensation rates are to conform 
to the character of work and responsibilities involved. Finally 
the time arrives when, if an efficient personnel system is to 
exist, it is imperative that a systematic classification and stand- 
, ardization of all positions and salaries, as above set forth, 
shall be made. Especially is this so in a government where 
all personnel provisions, in the final instance, must be deter- 
mined by or have the approval of a legislative body. 

In the case of no undertaking or government in the world 
is the need for such a standardized classification of positions 
and compensation greater than in that of the national govern- 
ment of the United States. This results from the magnitude 
of its operations and the variety of its activities. It is thus a 
matter of great moment to determine the extent to which this 
fundamental requirement of an efficient personnel system has 
been met. 

Legislative Determination of Positions and Salaries : The 
Statutory Roll. — It needs but a minute's inspection of 
the personnel system now in existence to reveal that hardly a 
beginning has been made in this direction. To begin with 
the first requisite to the establishment of such a system is that 
uniformity shall exist in respect to the determination of the 



i82 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

positions that shall be provided for and the compensation that 
shall attach to such positions. This uniformity is wholly 
lacking in the federal system. In some cases Congress itself 
attempts directly to determine the number, character, and com- 
pensation of positions. In others it leaves this to adminis- 
trative authorities, subject to varying limitations. 

The positions for which Congress establishes by statute 
the precise number at each title and compensation, although 
constituting but a small fraction of the federal service, are 
very numerous, embracing most of the important positions, 
and a host of minor ones. The positions of the heads and 
assistant heads of departments, services, and bureaus, local 
chief officers and a few other important positions, are gener- 
ally established ^ in the first instance by permanent acts, us- 
ually the organic acts relating to the service in which they fall. 
The salary rates fixed in such acts, however, are annually 
confirmed and occasionally altered by the annual appropriation 
acts in which provision is made for the payment of those 
salaries. 

Minor positions which Congress establishes by statute may 
be created in the organic acts or they may be provided for only 
in the annual appropriation acts. Legally considered, posi- 
tions established by appropriation acts only have no perma- 
nent existence but are confirmed from year to year. 

The following, taken from the act making appropriations 
for the sundry civil expenses of the government for the fiscal 
year 19 19, illustrates the method of statutory establishment of 
positions by appropriation acts : 

Employees' Compensation Commission : Salaries : Three 
commissioners at $4,000 each ; secretary and solicitor, $3,000 ; 

* In the case of some of the local chief officers the statutes create a 
distinct position for each local establishment. Thus, there is not a general 
class of positions of "collectors of customs" established by Congress, but 
the position of Collector of Customs at the Port of New York, Collector 
of Customs at the Port of Boston, etc. In other cases, the statute merely 
creates a number of identical positions (the number being either fixed 
or to be varied by the President within limits) without designating the 
localities to which such positions must be assigned. Such is the case with 
collectors of internal revenue. (See Revised Statutes, Sees. 3141, 3142, 
and act of August 15, 1876, 19 Stat. 152.) 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 183 

chief statistician, $3,500; disbursing agent, $2,000; claim ex- 
aminers — chief, $2,250, assistant, $1,800, two assistants at 
$1,600 each; special agents — one, $1,800, two at $1,600 each; 
clerks — four of class three, eight of class two, eight of class 
one, two at $1,000 each; messenger, $840; telephone oper- 
ator, $720; in all, $63,510. 

In the higher levels of the service, as already indicated, 
almost all positions are statutory. With' respect to positions 
below these levels, however, it is impossible to define with 
precision the principle which Congress, in framing appropria- 
tion acts, employs in selecting the positions to be placed on a 
statutory basis. Wide variations in practice are found, im- 
possible to explain on any consistent basis. 

In general it may be said, though there are exceptions even 
here, that it is the practice for Congress to establish by law 
all the positions, however minor, attached to the office of the 
head of a department or bureau. In the operating divisions 
of the several bureaus and services, including the whole of their 
field organizations, specific positions, other than heads and 
deputy heads of local offices, are seldom established by statute. 
In a few of the field services, however, the specification of 
"statutory" positions for each field station or office in the 
same detail as that employed for the central offices at Wash- 
ington is followed. 

No computation of the precise number of positions spe- 
cifically established by Congress is available; probably 20,000 
would not be over the mark. The Reclassification Commis- 
sion found that in the Book of Estimates for 1920 the posi- 
tions in the Washington service established by statute carry 
583 different titles. These positions are found in every 
branch of the service. Manifestly, Congress, in establishing 
these positions, if it is to do its work properly, should be 
guided by a standard schedule of classes in which the duties 
of each class are defined, and an appropriate title and com- 
pensation rate attached to each. Manifestly, too, it should 
have at hand accurate information as to the duties performed 
in each position. It is perhaps needless to say that Congress 



i84 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

has never taken measures to meet either of these two require- 
ments. It has enacted no schedule of classes and grades of 
service.^ It has not even attempted a definition of the duties 
of the specific positions, much less a comparative grading of 
those positions within each class, as a basis for the fixation 
of rates. The only standard by which the correctness or ade- 
quacy of the rates fixed for the thousands of statutory posi- 
tions has been measured in recent years has been the personal 
judgment of the members of the committees of Congress re- 
sponsible for appropriation measures. Nor have the congres- 
sional committees commonly had before them, in passing upon 
the titles and compensation rates for these "statutory" posi- 
tions, more than the most meager information as to the duties 
involved. For the most part the schedules of statutory posi- 
tions have been reenacted from year to year virtually without 
examination of the duties being performed or to be performed 

^ In certain of the groups of statutory positions will be found a series 
of titles and compensation rates, which at first blush seem to approximate 
a true classification, even though lacking in express definitions of duties. 
Upon close examination, however, they will be found to have no definite 
relation to the duties of particular positions. A good illustration is found 
in titles and compensation rates provided for the examining force of the 
Patent Ofllice. The examining corps proper is organized in a number of 
divisions, at the head of each of which is a principal examiner. Under 
each principal examiner are a greater or less number of assistant exam- 
iners. These assistant examiners fall into four grades, with correspond- 
ing salary rates. The several grades, however, do not correspond to well 
defined gradations in the difficulty and responsibility of the duties or work 
performed. An assistant examiner may pass from one grade to the next, 
as a vacancy occurs, without his duties changing in any respect ; and the 
difficulty and responsibility of his duties may greatly increase without his 
receiving any advancement in grade. A similar grading is found in the 
Public Health Service. In both cases there is, of course, a natural prob- 
ability that long service necessary for advancement in rank, will entail 
advancement in difficulty and responsibility of duties ; but this is not of 
the essence of the classification, which will be applied even in cases where 
the actual result has been a much less or much greater growth in difficulty 
or responsibility of duty than is usual. In a number of places in the ap- 
propriation acts containing statutory positions and rates, there will be 
found the title "Clerk, Class i," "Clerk, Class 2," etc. To the uninitiated 
these designations might seem to refer to a standard classification of 
duties elsewhere prescribed. Such is not the case, however. The reference 
is merely to the so-called "classification" of clerks, enacted by Congress in 
1853, by which all clerical positions for which no specific salary was fixed 
by statute were to be paid either $1,800, $1,600, $1,400 or $1,200 and were 
to be designated as of Class i, 2, 3 or 4, accordingly. A "clerk of class i" 
is, therefore, merely another way of saying a "clerk at $1,800." Congress 
has never attempted to define, even in the most general terms, the grades 
of duty appropriate to each of these classes. 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 185 

under the several titles, change being made usually only when 
an increase of salary for some employee on the statutory roll 
is urged upon the committee, or when an administrative offi- 
cer succeeds in convincing the Committees that a different ar- 
rangement of statutory positions is in the interest of the gov- 
ernment. 

The consular service furnishes perhaps the only instance 
except in the postal service in which Congress has attempted 
and ordered classification of the duties of the service and the 
corresponding fixation of compensation rates for particular 
positions. The salaries of consuls are fixed not in the annual 
appropriation act but in a general setting up of eight consular 
grades with corresponding salary rates, and allocating each 
consulate and each consulate general to a specific grade, pre- 
sumably with reference to the difficulty and responsibility of 
the work attached to the several posts. 

While the principle of this schedule of grading is entirely 
sound, it is believed that the determination of the relative dif- 
ficulty and importance of the several consulates is one that 
should be made not by Congress but by the State Department. 
Here as elsewhere the crystallization of a classification or grad- 
ing made at a given time into a statute almost inevitably tends 
to make permanent or static the classification thus enacted 
despite the changes which may subsequently ensue. The pres- 
ent grading of consulates was enacted in 1906. It needs no 
argument that the relative importance of the several consulates 
has greatly shifted since that time, yet the grading remains 
the same. 

Administrative Determination of Positions and Salaries: 
Lump Sum Appropriations. — All positions and salaries not 
set up by act of Congress are established either by the Presi- 
dent or by the heads of departments. In a few cases Congress 
has specifically authorized the establishment of positions of a 
particular class in the discretion of the President. Aside from 
such exceptional cases, however, the power to establish posi- 
tions and salary rates, when not exercised by Congress, is 
vested in the heads of departments and independent establish- 



i86 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ments, partly under certain express provisions of law, some 
of which are more or less obsolete and inapplicable, and partly 
under the implied power which an appropriation act confers 
upon these heads to take all steps necessary in the expenditure 
of the appropriations with which Congress has entrusted them. 

If Congress, in making an appropriation for a specific pur- 
pose involving the employment of personnel, does not specify 
the positions and salary rates at which such personnel shall 
be employed, the appropriation is commonly designated as a 
"lump-sum" appropriation.^ 

As an example of such a lump-sum appropriation may be 
cited the following: 

To further enable the Interstate Commerce Commission 
to enforce compliance with section twenty of the Act to regu- 
late commerce as amended by the Act approved June twenty- 
ninth, nineteen hundred and six, including the employment of 
necessary special agents or examiners, $300,000.^ 

In the postal service Congress has adopted a practice in 
the establishment of positions different from that followed by 
it in any other service. It would be manifestly impossible, 
of course, for Congress to establish by statute the precise 
positions to be set up at each and every Post Office. On the 
other hand, Congress does not give to the Postmaster General 
an absolutely free hand in this regard even within the limits 
of his appropriation. Instead it has adopted the peculiar 
method of specifying the total number of employees of what- 
ever designation to be employed at a given salary rate. Thus 
it provides for the total number of clerks, carriers, and rail- 
way mail clerks at a certain rate to be employed throughout 
the service; the total number of foremen, money-order cash- 
iers, assistant cashiers, bookkeepers, examiners, and so on to 
be employed at a given rate. The compensation rates pre- 
vailing in the postal service, moreover, are based upon an or- 

* The term "lump sum" is also applied to certain appropriations which 
cannot be expended for personal services, but with these the present work 
is not concerned. 

*40 Stat., 649. 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 187 

dered classification of the duties performed and a standard 
schedule of compensation rates attached to the several classes 
of duties. Without going into all the details of this classi- 
fication, which are not of general interest it may be said that 
among the lower grades of employees the definite classes of 
clerks in first and second class post offices, railway mail clerks, 
carriers in the city delivery service, rural delivery carriers, 
motor route carriers, and village delivery carriers are recog- 
nized. In each of these classes a series of definite 'Kiaes of 
pay are provided and employees advanced from rate'sJ6 rate 
after a given length of service, subject to certain standards 
of efficiency discussed in a subsequent chapter. The com- 
pensation of postmasters of all classes is graded according to 
the receipts of their offices. Again, in the first class offices, 
where supervisory officials are required in addition to the 
Postmaster, definite schedules are set up for each grade of 
post office within the first class, the grading being according 
to receipts, and no less than twenty diflferent grades being 
recognized. Moreover, a separate grading is provided for the 
superintending of the stations within large first class post of- 
fices. This grading is according to the number of employees 
in the station, ten grades being recognized for this purpose. 
Similar gradings are provided for the divisional railway mail 
offices, the inspection services, etc.^ 

Whatever the correctness of the details of this scheme or 
the adequacy of its compensation rates, it is at least a consis- 
tent, ordered system for the fixation of compensation that 
stands out in marked contrast against the haphazard system in 
the rest of the federal service. The acts, indeed, do not define 
the duties to be performed under the several titles, but these 
duties doubtless are defined sufficiently by the departmental 
regulations and tradition. 

The method applied in the postal service is applicable mani- 
festly only to a very large organization ; and has not been em- 

*The scheme of classification and grading here outlined is that estab- 
lished by the reclassification act of June S, 1920. The classifications estab- 
lished by earlier acts which that act superseded followed substantially the 
same principles but were less consistent and harmonious. 



i88 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ployed in fact for any other organization. In the remainder 
of the service, where Congress has not left the entire matter 
wholly in the hands of the administrative officers, or has not 
itself fixed all the details, it has commonly established the 
maximum salary that may be paid for a given class of work; 
sometimes specifying also the maximum number who might 
be employed at such maximum salary, or at salaries over a 
specified amount. The total number of positions whose com- 
pensajT 41 rates are governed by restrictions of this type is not 
incons. -iCrable but they form a very small fraction of the 
total. It is only necessary to say that in fixing its maximum 
rates in these cases Congress, or its committees, have before 
them no more in the way of a standard schedule of classes and 
grades of service than they have in establishing statutory po- 
sitions. 

Over a vast area of the service, embracing, if the postal 
service be left aside, far the greater part of the federal per- 
sonnel. Congress has left the power to establish specific posi- 
tions and fix their compensation rates in the hands of the ad- 
ministrative officers largely without restriction. But here, as 
elsewhere, it has completely failed to provide any standard 
classification of classes and grades of service to guide and con- 
trol the action of the administrative officers in the exercise 
of the power entrusted to them. So far as the fixation of the 
titles and compensation rates of positions established by ad- 
ministrative action have been based upon sound principles of 
classification, the result is due wholly to the initiative and abil- 
ity of the administrative officers concerned. 

To attempt a general characterization of the situation pre- 
vailing over the whole service in this respect is at best haz- 
ardous; conditions vary greatly from department to depart- 
ment, and in some departments equally from service to service. 
It may be said safely, however, that over a considerable area 
of the service, the heads of departments and bureaus have ex- 
ercised their wide discretion in the fixation of rates for indi- 
vidual positions with but little more regard to cgrrect prin- 
ciples than has Congress. In those services in which a clear 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 189 

differentiation into classes is almost automatic because of the 
nature of the work, such a differentiation, of course, exists, 
and it would be improved in form rather than in substance by 
the formulation of a standard classification embodying explicit 
definitions of duty for each grade. In these areas the general 
failure of administrative officers to draw up a formal classi- 
fication is merely a technical delinquency. The same failure 
has occurred, however, with equal generality with respect to 
those services in which a clear-cut, complete, and formal clas- 
sification is indispensable to effective personnel administration. 
At best what'' is usually found in these cases is merely a scheme 
of titles with a scale of compensation rates attached without 
any clear definition being attempted of the differences in the 
duties to be performed under the several titles.^ At worst, 
there will be found, especially in respect to the clerical service, 
a failure not merely to adhere to, but even to develop so much 
as a consistent scheme of titles. 

In the actual application of rates based on titles instead 
of definition of duties, some more or less clearly defined rela- 
tionship between duties and compensation commonly guides 
the executives, and becomes a matter of tradition or under- 
standing among the personnel generally. Experience proves, 
however, that such a genial reliance on a general understand- 
ing of loose distinctions is a snare and a delusion. Even 
where a highly developed, formalized and published classi- 
fication exists, with the duties appropriate to each class ac- 

^ In theory it is quite possible, though very inconvenient, to draw up a 
sound scheme of compensation rates without employing titles at all ; but 
it is impossible (though sometimes apparently quite convenient) to draw 
up such a scheme merely by employing titles without employing definitions 
of duties. An apparent exception is found where the titles themselves 
accurately and fully describe the duties intended, an occurrence much 
rarer than might be thought without examination. In not a few cases 
there exist classifications based solely on titles, which superficially seem 
accurately to imply certain duties. On examination it usually appears that 
no such accurate definition is in fact implied in them. "The facts abun- 
dantly prove the contention that the present titles, despite their great 
number and variety, are of almost no value for identifying the nature of 
the wor^k actually performed. It is apparent that the present appropriation, 
payroll, and common titles of positions cannot serve as a basis for a 
system of uniform and equitable pay for the same character of employ- 
ment," Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 49- 



190 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

curately defined, its correct application to particular cases is 
often difficult. Where no such classification exists, the inev- 
itable result is wide variations in compensation rate between 
individuals in the same branch of the service doing substan- 
tially the same work, and, conversely, substantially the same 
compensation rates for individuals in the same branch of the 
service doing work of widely different grades of difficulty and 
responsibility.^ 

That such a result has actually ensued over large areas of 
the federal service has long been notorious. In 1907 the situ- 
ation in the clerical employments in the departments at Wash- 
ington was thus described by a committee of officials appointed 
by President Roosevelt to inquire into the methods of busi- 
ness of the government : 

It is a well known fact that through all the Departments peo- 
ple are sitting side by side doing the same class of work and 
receiving very different compensation. Some clerks doing the 
simplest kind of work are, by reason of length of service, re- 
ceiving high salaries, while young men only recently certified 
by the Civil Service Commission, whose general intelligence 
and ability soon cause them to be assigned to the most difficult 
work in the office, have to wait many years before they re- 
ceive the recognition in salary that the character of their 
work justifies.^ 

Thirteen years later the Reclassification Commission draws 
an even stronger indictment: 

Sometimes employees working side by side doing the same 
work will be receiving rates of pay varying by 50 per cent, 
or even more. Often the more efficient employees are paid 
at the lower rates. Many instances can be cited where the 
clerk in charge of a section or other minor organization unit 
is receiving less than other employees working under his di- 

^This is not to say that the mere existence of a paper classification 
will of itself preventsuch conditions from developing; but in its absence 
they are almost certain to develop. 

' Report to the President by the Committee on Department Methods ; 
Classification of Positions and Gradations of salaries for employees of 
the Executive Departments and Independent Establishments in Washing- 
ton, 1907, p. 6. 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 191 

rection. His compensation for the added responsibility lies 
in the fact that if one of his more highly paid subordinates re- 
signs his chances of getting the vacancy are excellent.^ 

The clerical employments at Washington comprise by no 
means the only portion of the federal service in which these 
conditions exist. They exist also, though perhaps to a less 
pronounced degree, in the technical and professional employ- 
ments at Washington, and in the field services. As an im- 
portant instance of such failure may be cited the internal reve- 
nue service, where upwards of three thousand persons are 
employed under the wholly non-descriptive title of deputy 
collector, at salaries running from $900 to $3,000. Obviously 
there must be a world of difference in respect to duties between 
the officers receiving the upper limit and the employees receiv- 
ing the lower. The former are, in fact, assistants to the col- 
lectors in charge of the more important collection districts, and 
have important and difficult duties, both in the supervision of 
the office and field forces, and in the handling of difficult ques- 
tions of the application of the laws arising in their districts. 
The latter are in some cases clerks employed on low grade 
routine work, in others, detectives assigned to routine work 
in respect to infractions of the revenue laws applicable to 
liquor, opium, etc. Between these two extremes, moreover, 
are a small army of employees performing duties of many dif- 
ferent shades of difficulty and responsibility, susceptible, owing 
to the completely standardized nature of the work performed 
in the field by the internal revenue service, of precise definition 
and systematic classification. 

Perhaps even more inconsistent with sound principles is 
the setting-up of graded titles, apparently implying the ex- 
istence of a corresponding gradation of duties, when in fact 
the compensation rates affixed to the several titles overlap, thus 
on their face negativing the implication of a grading of duties. 
An instance of this type of classification is that prevailing in 
the Department of Justice where "attorneys" are found who 

^Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 52. 



192 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

receive but $2,500, while some "assistant attorneys" receive 
as high as $3,500. 

Space will not permit the examination in this volume of 
all the inconsistencies and imperfections of classification which 
now obtain in this relatively simple matter of grading the du- 
ties embraced in each given type of service within a given de- 
partment or branch. It should be pointed out, however, that 
almost without exception there has been a failure accurately 
to classify and grade the duties involved in the general types 
of clerical work found in the federal service. Aside from 
such supervisory classes as are commonly designated in the 
practice of the federal service as "chief clerk" and "chief of 
division," almost all the clerical work of the government, in 
offices having a statutory roll, is performed under the single 
title of "clerk," with salaries ranging from $900 to $2,000. 
Not only, as already stated, has no attempt ever been made by 
Congress to define the grades of clerical duty which should 
attach to any given salary rate; so far as available informa- 
tion indicates no such attempt has been made by any head of 
department or branch, except to a limited extent in the Emer- 
gency Fleet Corporation and the Shipping Board. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that the condition of gross inequality in 
the relation between compensation and duty which was cited 
above as existing in the clerical employments in the depart- 
ments at Washington, and which exists to almost an equal de- 
gree in the larger organizations employing numbers of clerks 
in the field, should have come about. 

The responsibility for the failure to develop precise clas- 
sifications for each given class of service in each department 
or branch, which has ensued almost universally over the whole 
area of the federal service, rests doubtless in large measure 
upon Congress, but in no small measure also upon the Presi- 
dent and the Civil Service Commission. Under the general 
power of direction which the President possesses and under 
the power to make rules with which he is vested by the civil 
service act, he could undoubtedly have compelled the proper 
classification of the several services, either directly by the Civil 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 193 

Service Commission or by the departmental officers under its 
direction and supervision. 

Lack of Inter-Departmental Uniformity in Titles and Com- 
pensation Rates. — But even if each department or bureau 
had developed and applied a consistent salary classification 
for itself, uniformity, the primary essential of a classification 
for the federal government, w^ould not have been secured. The 
requirement of uniformity is simply that each kind of service, 
as for example, telephone sv^itchboard operating, or mechan- 
ical drafting, shall be classified and compensated in a uniform 
manner in all the various departments, bureaus, and divisions 
of the government in which that service is employed. An 
inequality in compensation rate for the same service as be- 
tween one governmental establishment and another is, of 
course, far less serious in its effect upon morale, and upon 
the administration of personnel affairs generally, than is like 
inequality within a single branch, but it is none the less highly 
undesirable. It is manifestly wrong in principle. At its worst 
it may represent an actual overpayment of the employee at 
the higher rate, and an actual underpayment of the employee 
at the lower rate. 

The inevitable result of the absence of any central control, 
coupled with the failure of most of the departments to develop 
a cognate departmental control over its several bureaus and 
offices, has been the development of wide divergencies between 
department and department, and even between organizations in 
the same department, in the compenastion for the same work. 
The fact has long been patent, though details have not been 
readily obtainable. So far as the departmental service at 
Washington is concerned, however, the investigations of the 
congressional commission on reclassification have now fur- 
nished abundant evidence. 

The Commission finds that the salary and wage rates for 
positions in the same class are different in different depart- 
ments and independent establishments. The scale of pay in 
some departments is markedly higher than the scale for the 
same class of work in other departments. 



194 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The statistical evidence to support this finding is super- 
abundant. It is to be found in the figures for almost every 
numerically important class which is represented in two or 
more establishments. One of the instances that particularly 
impressed the staff of the Commission as it made its detailed 
examination of the figures, in connection with the recom- 
mendation of the Commission in respect to salaries, was that 
of the junior examiners. They are found mainly in the Bu- 
reau of War Risk Insurance and the Bureau of Internal Reve- 
nue, both of the Treasury Department, and in the Pension 
Bureau and the General Land Office of the Interior Depart- 
ment. 

In the Interior Department the most common rate for 
junior examiners was $1,200, whereas in the Treasury De- 
partment two rates were almost equally common, $1,400 and 
$1,800. The lower rate prevails in the Bureau of Internal 
Revenue and the higher rate in the Bureau of War Risk In- 
surance. These figures are exclusive of bonus, but obviously 
such differences were not offset by either the bonus law which 
was operative on April 30, 19 19, nor are they offset by the 
present law. 

The Commission did not develop in its report any other 
major instance of diversity of scales between specific depart- 
ments, though unquestionably a great variety of such instances 
are to be found in the unpublished tabulations made by it. 

Coincident with the wide divergencies between the depart- 
ments in compensation scales has developed an even wider di- 
vergency in the titles employed to designate a given class of 
work. The investigations of the Reclassification Commission 
have made concrete what has long been a matter of general 
knowledge. 

Employees termed "Senior file and record clerks" in the 
classification according to the duties actually performed have 
been selected for the first illustration. This class embraces 
2,400 employees. While many of them were described as 
clerks of the four classes and some as "clerk class $1,000," 
"clerk class $1,100," "clerk class $1,300," and some simply 
clerks, the positions of others were described by many dif- 
ferent titles, 105 being the total number of different titles now 
in use for this class. . . . 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 195 

Junior examiners have been selected as a second illustra- 
tion. In this class some 500 employees are described at pres- 
ent by 48 different payroll titles. . . . 

Examples of many different payroll titles embraced under 
a single class title are not limited to the services involving 
filing and examining work. They are found in nearly all of 
the services. Under the title "Junior civil engineer" as the 
correct occupational designation, were found positions carry- 
ing 33 different payroll titles some of which were : "Clerk, 
Class III," "Chief draftsman," "Valveman," "Assistant clas- 
sifier," and "Skilled laborer." 

In the class of positions, properly designated as "Associ- 
ate cadastral engineer" involving knowledge of United States 
laws and regulations governing public land patents as well 
as engineering, were found several employees whose positions 
now carry the following payroll titles : "Clerk," "Clerk, Class 
III," "Clerk, Class IV," and "United States surveyor on spe- 
cial detail." Among those correctly classed as "Carpenter" 
were found some 400 employees having at present 29 different 
payroll titles. These included "Mechanic," "Mechanician," 
"Night guard," "Orderly," and "Clerk, Class 1200." . . . 

An examination of the questionnaires of 1,283 employees 
whose salaries are appropriated for under the title of "Clerk, 
Class i" showed that they are filling positions that call for the 
performance of 97 varieties of duties. A similar study of the 
questionnaires of 3,207 "Clerks, Class $1,200," brought out 
the fact that they are properly classifiable in 'j'j of the classes 
proposed in this report. This analysis, carried further, re- 
vealed the same condition throughout the whole range of pres- 
ent clerk classes.^ 

The Work of the Reclassification Commission. — For- 
tunately the Congress has recognized the necessity for some 
action looking toward the proper classification of the govern- 
ment employees. In the so-called Legislative Appropriation 
Act, approved March i, 1919,^ it provided for the establish- 
ment of the "Joint Commission on Reclassification of Sala- 
ries," which was to consist of three Senators, members of the 
Sixty-fifth Congress, to be appointed by the President of the 
Senate, and three Representatives, members of the Sixty-fifth 

^ Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 45-48. 
'40 Stat. 1269. 



196 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Congress, to be appointed by the Speaker of the House. The 
duties of the Commission were thus laid down by the act : 

It shall be the duty of the commission to investigate the 
rates of compensation paid to civilian employees by the munici- 
pal government and the various executive departments and 
other governmental establishments in the District of Columbia, 
except the navy yard and the Postal Service, and report by 
bill or otherwise, as soon as practicable, what reclassification 
and readjustment of compensation should be made so as to 
provide uniform and equitable pay for the same character of 
employment throughout the District of Columbia in the serv- 
ices enumerated. 

The Commission was given an initial appropriation of 
$25,000, which was later supplemented by an additional ap- 
propriation of $50,000; and the heads of the various govern- 
mental services and the Commissioners of the District of Co- 
lumbia were directed to furnish office space and equipment, 
detail officers and employees, furnish data and information, 
and make investigations whenever requested by the Commis- 
sion. 

The Commission began its work in April, 19 19, and sub- 
mitted its report to Congress on March 12, 1920. 

Working Organisation of the Commission. — The organ- 
ization of the Commission was as follows : all broad matters 
of policy and the fixing of the rates of pay to be recommended 
to the Congress were passed upon by the Commission as a 
whole. The three Representatives, appointed by the Speaker 
of the House, were not members of the Sixty-sixth Congress 
and thus they were able to devote all their time to the work 
of the Commission, They exercised constant general super- 
vision over all its activities and passed upon the many_^ de- 
tailed questions that arose. 

To furnish advice on the technique of classification and, 
to be directly responsible for the actual direction of the clas- 
sification work proper, the Commission retained a company of 
industrial engineers who had had experience in similar work 
in this country both in governmental and commercial lines, 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 197 

The great body of the Commission's personnel was com- 
posed of employees detailed to it by the several departments. 
This force was divided into four principal divisions, the clas- 
sification staff which was concerned with the preparation of 
the specifications descriptive of the several positions, the re- 
search staff that made most of the economic and social studies 
specially desired by the Commission and prepared most of the 
salary recommendations for consideration by the Commission, 
the clerical staff that maintained the records, and the statis- 
tical staff that compiled the figures required by the Commission 
in respect to the service as it was on April 30, 1919. 

The employees detailed to the Commission were generally 
selected because of some special qualifications for their pro- 
posed assignment. The organization thus brought to bear on 
the problems involved, the judgment in respect to matters of 
policy of six members or former members of Congress, the 
technical advice of persons experienced in the technique of 
classification, and the knowledge possessed by the detailed staff 
regarding the various governmental agencies, procedures, and 
positions. In addition the Commission organized and had the 
assistance of a great number of different committees made up 
of people not on the staff of the Commission. There were 
committees for each large organization, representative of the 
employees and the administrators, committees on each of the 
more important major subjects before the commission, rep- 
resentative of the public, the administrators, and the employees, 
and committees on each of the several types of service recog- 
nized by the Commission. These so-called "service commit- 
tees" were given formal hearings at which they presented their 
criticisms and suggestions regarding the specifications and their 
recommendations regarding salary scales. Many of these com- 
mittees devoted a large amount of time to their work for the 
Commission; and its report is based on the most far reaching 
investigation of the personnel of the United States Government 
at Washington that has ever been made. 

Method of Determining Position Specifications. — The 
method pursued by the Commission in developing its speci- 



198 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

fications was briefly as follows : each employee on the payroll 
on April 30, 19 19, was furnished with a questionnaire which 
asked, among other things, "What work do you actually per- 
form in your position?" When the employee had filled out 
his questionnaire, it was submitted to his official superior who 
was asked, "What is the work actually performed by the em- 
ployee to whom this questionnaire was addressed?" He was 
also asked, "What qualifications do you think applicants who 
seek appointment to this position should possess (a) As to 
education, (b) As to length and kind of practical experience, 
and (c) As to personal characteristics?" 

The questionnaires were submitted to the Commission in 
the order in which the names appeared on the payroll. Since 
in the government service there is commonly no relationship 
between organization units and payrolls, the first step taken 
by the Commission, after making sure that all questionnaires 
had been received and establishing its controlling records, was 
to arrange the questionnaires in true organization order, with 
each employee's card coming under that for his immediate 
superior together with those for the other employees in the 
same unit doing the same kind of work. Organization charts 
were then prepared, giving a graphic view of the various units 
and the lines of authority. 

The questionnaires were then symbolized, by the use of a 
numerical code, to show the distinct service or group of closely 
related services to which they belonged. These services were 
generally easily recognizable trades, crafts, vocations, or pro- 
fessions. In the clerical group the services recognized fol- 
lowed lines that reflected the functional organization lines ob- 
servable in many of the government departments. An account- 
ing service took care of most of the employees in the disbursing 
and auditing offices; a supply and equipment service provided 
for the employees of the supply divisions ; a publications serv- 
ice, for the employees of the publications division; a mail, file, 
and record service for the employees of mail and file divisions; 
and a personnel service for the employees of the appointment 
offices. Special services for stenographers and typists, statis- 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 199 

tical clerks, mechanical tabulating machine operators, office ap- 
pliance operators, telephone and telegraph operators and mes- 
sengers, with a miscellaneous clerical service, provided a rough 
plan for bringing together employees doing like work. 

Until the questionnaires had been thus symbolized by 
services, they were kept in organization order so that the state- 
ments on the cards could be interpreted in the light of the in- 
formation contained on other cards in the same organization. 
When the greater part of the symbolizing had been completed, 
the questionnaires were sorted by services; and the question- 
naires for each service were turned over to the stafif committee 
which was responsible for the preparation of the specifications 
descriptive of the different classes of positions in the particu- 
lar service. 

As a general rule tentative class specifications were drawn 
up by the various committees in advance of actually sorting 
the cards for any service into classes. For this purpose the 
committees drew on several sources of information. They 
scanned the questionnaires and since most members of the 
committees had come from the respective services concerned, 
they drew on their own knowledge of the positions involved. 
They consulted informally with officials and employees in the 
government service and others in whom they had confidence. 
Suggestions were also derived from study of titles and speci- 
fications printed in the reports of other modern classifications. 
These first drafts of tentative specifications were then tested 
and revised through the process of actually using them as a 
basis for sorting the questionnaires to classes. 

The tentative specifications as thus drafted and tested by 
the several committees were reviewed by the headquarters 
staff and, as a rule, by at least one of the House members of 
the Commission, and when they were regarded as reasonably 
satisfactory, they were mimeographed and submitted to the 
special service committees organized outside the Commission's 
staff from among the employees and the administrators who 
were engaged in or were especially concerned with the par- 
ticular type of work involved. These committees were asked 



200 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

to criticize the specifications and to make suggestions regard- 
ing salaries. Each committee was asked to submit a brief 
and was given a hearing on its brief. The specifications were 
revised in the Hght of these criticisms before their final adop- 
tion by the Commission. 

Scope and Character of Specifications. — For each class of 
positions recognized by the Commission there is provided: 
(i) a brief descriptive class title; (2) a statement of the duties 
of the position in the class, and generally a few specially se- 
lected examples illustrative of the duties; (3) a statement of 
the qualifications required for entrance into the class; and (4) 
an indication of the principal lines of promotion to and from 
the position. These four items make up the classification 
proper and to them are added the compensation rates recom- 
mended by the Commission for the class. 

Primary Unit of ClassiUcaiion: the Class. — The Commis- 
sion thus defines its "class" which is the primary unit of its 
work : 

A "class" is a group of all positions which, regardless of 
their organization connection, or location, call for the per- 
formance of substantially similar duties or work and involve 
the exercise of responsibilities of like importance and therefore 
demand substantially the same qualifications on the part of 
incumbents, and are, for these reasons, subject to common 
treatment in the selection of qualified appointees and other em- 
ployment processes, and that can be aptly described by the 
same title. 

Under this system of classification, it will be noted, no 
efifort is made, in the classification proper, to consolidate into 
grades employees doing dissimilar work, believed by the clas- 
sifiers to be of like value. Conceivably certain classes of ac- 
counting clerks or bookkeepers, filing clerks, statistical clerks, 
supply clerks, addressing machine operators, and mechanical 
tabulating machine operators may all be regarded as of like 
value and might be consolidated into a heterogeneous grade 
under some such common title as "clerk." The Commission 
deliberately rejected this suggestion. Any such grading sys- 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 201 

tern assumes that in the different kinds of clerical work the 
lines dividing one class from another may be drawn arbitrarily 
at any point that will fit the standard grading scheme adopted, 
and that steps of exactly the same standard height are ap- 
plicable to all kinds of clerical work. The Commission was of 
the opinion that the facts regarding the different kinds of cler- 
ical work were incompatible with this assumption, and that 
the number and the width of the gradations would have to be 
determined on the basis of the facts regarding the specific 
work and not on the basis of a preconceived system of grades. 

Titles for a heterogeneous grade, too, were regarded as 
too indefinite to be really descriptive of the positions. The 
term "clerk" for example, is applicable to so many positions 
at Washington, over 50,000 according to the Commission's 
figures, that it has almost no descriptive value in estimates 
and reports regarding the work of the various offices. To 
make these estimates and reports specific and concrete, it was 
regarded as necessary that titles should be used that would give 
a much more definite idea of the work actually being per- 
formed. 

In the great majority of cases, therefore, the Commis- 
sion used as its primary unit a scientific class, made up of 
positions requiring like work, involving like responsibilities and 
requiring like entrance qualifications. Its main departure from 
this principle is in its so-called "group classes" which are 
found mainly in the middle and higher ranges of the service 
and provide a single "group class" for positions alike in re- 
spect to duties, responsibilities, and general qualifications but 
differing in respect to the subject matter or the official pro- 
cedure of which the employee must have a thorough knowl- 
edge. Provision is made, however, that a parenthetical ad- 
dition shall be made to the group class title to indicate spe- 
cifically the exact nature of the work. 

Practically all objects which may be attained through a 
duties classification of positions may be secured through one 
that adopts as its primary unit such a true, scientific class. It 
would serve not only for salary standardization but for re- 



202 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

cruitment, promotion, and transfer, and, in a large measure, 
it would furnish a standard terminology to be applied in de- 
scriptions of organizations and procedures and in estimates 
and reports. It permits of the arrangement or the combina- 
tion of these units in a number of significant ways and thus it 
is a good classification for statistical and accounting purposes. 
Arrangement of Classes in Series and Services. — In the 
Commission's report the 1,762 classes it found in the depart- 
ments and offices at Washington are arranged first in "series," 
if series are applicable, and in "services." It thus defines its 
"Series" and "Services," 

Where a number of "classes" of positions are substantially 
similar as to the type of work involved and differ only in rank 
as determined by the importance of the duties, the degree of 
responsibility involved, and the amount of training and ex- 
perience required, such "classes" constitute a "series," and 
each is given a title containing a common term descriptive of 
the type of work, with a modifying term indicative of the 
relative rank. 

A "service" is a general aggregation of classes of posi- 
tions grouped regardless not only of departmental and organ- 
ization lines, but also regardless of rank, on the basis of out- 
standing common characteristics, selected more or less arbi- 
trarily to aid in the process of classification. A "service" 
includes positions belonging to a given occupation, vocation, 
calling, profession, business, craft, trade, or group of trades — 
a general line of work. 

The Commission did not employ the sharp division into 
Professional, Sub-professional, Clerical and so on that has 
been a feature of some modern classifications, and closely re- 
sembles the orthodox broad divisions long used in occupa- 
tional statistics of population. Its classes, of course, could 
have been thus arranged, but it preferred the less theoretical, 
less academic system of bringing together in one place positions 
in related work, whether they were professional, sub-profes- 
sional, or clerical. Incidentally this arrangement relieved the 
Commission of the difficult and more or less embarrassing 
decisions, necessarily made more or less arbitrarily, as to 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 203 

whether certain border-line classes of positions are to be put 
under professional, sub-professional, or clerical; but its fun- 
damental purpose was to adopt an arrangement that would 
facilitate the subsequent use of the classification. If one is 
dealing with an accounting or auditing organization, one will 
find all the accounting and auditing positions in the same place ; 
and a like arrangement is adopted for statistics, engineering, 
library work, and other types of work. In considering many 
government units, one finds the positions typical of the or- 
ganization together instead of scattered through the book un- 
der the various broad divisions. On first inspection the 
scheme of arrangement adopted by the Commission is perhaps 
less quickly grasped, but after one has become familiar with 
it, it is far simpler to use. 

Method of Determining Compensation Rates. — After the 
tentative class specifications had been developed by the clas- 
sification staff of the Commission, they were submitted to the 
research staff, which used them as a basis for its study of what 
private employers were paying for similar work. The ques- 
tionnaires were tentatively assigned or allocated to classes and 
were then submitted to the statistical staff which compiled sta- 
tistics to show what the government itself was paying for the 
different classes of work in the different departments and in- 
dependent establishments. The committees representing the 
administrators and the employees in the several types of work 
were requested to submit what they regarded as the proper 
salary scales. At the request of the Commission, the United 
States Bureau of Labor Statistics had made two budget stud- 
ies in Washington, the first showing separately for men and 
for women what it cost an individual to maintain himself or 
herself in Washington and the second what it cost a family 
of five to live according to a minimum standard of health an3 
decency. 

General figures, of course, were available from official 
sources regarding the increase in the cost of living that has 
taken place over a series of years as well as wholesale and re- 
tail price indices, and statistics were compiled from the Official 



204 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Register of the United States to show the movement of the 
salaries of the government employees in the District of Co- 
lumbia since 1893. 

After consideration of all these factors the research staff 
made a recommendation to the Commission. The entire Com- 
mission considered the matter of salaries and had before it 
the specifications and all the data that were available. 

The salaries recommended by the Commission represent 
the consensus of judgment of the Commissioners arrived at 
after considering all the available data. They do not repre- 
sent the results of an adoption of any particular theory for 
salary adjustments. Various theoretical bases of salary fix- 
ing may be urged, such as the competitive principle or paying 
what private employers pay, the minimum wage principle, and 
the principle of increasing old rates by a certain percentage 
to offset increased cost of living. None of these principles 
were adopted by the Commission; they relied rather on their 
own judgment after consideration of the facts. 

An examination of the rates recommended by the Com- 
mission discloses that in comparatively few cases has it sug- 
gested a rate below the minimum of subsistence for an indi- 
vidual, but that for the great majority of positions its rates 
are below the comfort and decency standard for a family of 
five as found by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its rates, as 
a rule, do not by any means offset the increase that has taken 
place in the cost of living, and old employees would not find 
the purchasing power of their salaries restored to what it was 
on their appointment if the new rates were to be adopted. 
For the lower paid positions the recommended salaries on the 
whole compare favorably with those in private employments. 
In the higher administrative, clerical, technical, and scien'Fific 
positions, the recommendations are materially below the sala- 
ries in commercial enterprises. The salaries for technical and 
scientific employees are more nearly on a par with those paid 
in colleges and universities. The suggested rates for the 
clerical service closely approximate the salaries being paid by 
the government in the more conservative of the newer or the 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 205 

war expanded government agencies. The Commission esti- 
mated that if its recommendations were followed, it would 
involve an increase of from eight to ten per cent over the salary 
rates that were in existence on April 30, 19 19, plus the $240 
bonus. 

Provision for Minimum and Maximum Rates. — In com- 
mon with most modern classifications, that recommended by 
the Commission usually provides for each class a range of 
compensation from minimum to maximum with specific steps 
within the range. These steps give opportunity for annual 
advancement until the maximum is reached to those employees 
within the class whose efficiency records meet the standards of 
efficiency to be established for the different rates within the 
class. It was the intention of the Commission that the maxi- 
mum rates should be paid only to those who have served the 
specified number of years and have also reached the maximum 
standard of efficiency set for the class. The Commission thus 
provides for that vital distinction between advancement in 
pay, due to length of service and increased efficiency in the 
performance of unchanged duties, and promotion, due to the 
assignment to higher duties. 

Legal Determination of Specifications and Rates. — The 
Commission proposed that its specifications and salary ranges 
should be submitted to Congress and, with such amendments 
as the Congress might make, should be written into law. It 
never seriously considered recommending that Congress dele- 
gate to any administrative agency any of its present power over 
salaries. Its furthest recommendation in this direction was 
that if a new position should be created that could not be 
classified under the existing classification, the Civil Service 
Commission should by order prescribe the qualifications, du- 
ties, and rates of compensation for the additional class, with 
the proviso that the rates of compensation should be in har- 
mony with those established for comparable classes and that 
the Commission as soon as practicable should report its action 
to both Houses of Congress. The rates thus established would 
be in force until and except as altered, amended, or repealed 



2o6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

by law.^ This power, it will be observed, is far less than that 
now delegated to administrative officers under lump sum ap- 
propriations and specifically provides for publication and for 
an immediate report to the Congress. 

Installation of Classification. — After a classification estab- 
lishing standard specifications and fixing standard salary ranges 
has been adopted by legislative or administrative action, the 
next step is to put it into actual operation. The main task 
here is to say, in respect to each position, exactly where it falls 
in the classification on the basis of the duties which it involves. 
When its duties are identified with the appropriate standard 
description of duties, its class and title are fixed and the range 
of salary that is to be paid the position is automatically de- 
termined. Two terms have been used to describe this process, 
"allocation" and "appraisal." The Reclassification Commis- 
sion preferred "allocation." 

The initial allocation to the appropriate class, according 
to the recommendations of the Reclassification Commission, 
would be made by the Civil Service Commission, which would 
submit its designations to the department or independent es- 
tablishment involved, for criticism and review. The depart- 
ment would either accept the allocation to the class as made 
by the Civil Service Commission or would secure a hearing 
before that body for reconsideration. Final authority over 
allocation would rest in the hands of the Civil Service Com- 
mission. 

After the class into which the position belongs has been 
determined, the remaining point is to fix the exact salary rate, 
within the range established for the class, which shall be paid 
to the particular employee. Up to this point the classifica- 
tion processes are concerned with the position as distinct from 
the employee, but here the individual is taken into considera- 
tion. What is his length of service and what his efficiency? 
Under the bill proposed by the Commission the heads of the 
departments, subject to the approval of the Commission, would 
determine the exact rate to be paid and would certify their 

^Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 137. 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 207 

findings to the Commission together with the facts upon which 
they are based. 

Current Administration and the Classification. — No mat- 
ter how comprehensive and definite the specifications, how just 
the salary scale, and how accurate the allocations, a classi- 
fication cannot be made self-operative. To some agency or 
agencies constantly at work must be given the task of seeing 
that the actual personnel administration is in harmony with 
the classification and that the classification and the salary ranges 
are well adapted to meet conditions, not as they were when 
the fundamental classification legislation was adopted, but as 
they are at the moment. The problem is dynamic, and little 
progress can be made through legislation that treats it as static. 
The Reclassification Commission clearly recognized the im- 
perative need for a central administrative agency, and being 
adverse to the creation of any new one, it recommended that 
the Civil Service Commission, enlarged and improved, be 
charged with the duty of administering and enforcing the clas- 
sification and with the responsibility of recommending to Con- 
gress changes in the established specifications and salary ranges. 

The Commission's recommendations in respect to the ad- 
ministration of the classification were not based on any careful 
analysis of the ideal distribution of functions among the dif- 
ferent governmental agencies, now existing or properly to be 
created, which are concerned with the various aspects of clas- 
sification. At the time it was preparing its report, many 
people regarded the prospects for the creation of a Bureau of 
the Budget and the adoption of a sound method of financial 
administration as fairly remote, and naturally the Commission 
did not wish to submit a report that would make reclassifica- 
tion contingent upon budgetary reform. Budget reform, re- 
organization, improvement in business practice, and reclas- 
sification are all necessary processes in putting the government 
on a business basis and they are closely interrelated. The 
Commission, however, probably very properly, Interpreted Its 
mandate from Congress as giving it jurisdiction over only 
one of them and it framed its recommendations so that they 



2o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

would make classification effective with the least possible 
change in matters only indirectly related to personnel admin- 
istration. 

The classification proper, as recommended by the Com- 
mission, is unquestional _, based on sound fundamental prin- 
ciples, and the Commission's general attitude in salary fixing 
was apparently eminently practical. No one would attempt, 
of course, to say that the classification is free from errors in 
detail and that there are no inconsistencies and inequalities in 
the salary scales. The Commission itself said, "The task as- 
signed to your Commission by the Congress was the largest of 
its kind ever undertaken, and your Commission is not suf- 
fering from any illusions as to the degree of perfection at- 
tained." The errors and inconsistencies, such as they may be, 
however, are in details which may be easily amended and cor- 
rected, and it would unquestionably be a distinct step in ad- 
vance if such a classification, amended and perfected in the 
light of the detailed criticism which has developed since its 
publication, should be adopted for the government service. 

Such a broad endorsement of the classification proper and 
of the general attitude of the Commission in respect to salary 
fixing, however, does not imply an endorsement of the recom- 
mendations of the Commission respecting its administration. 
At a time when the entire question of the administration of 
government is being reviewed, it would be well for the Con- 
gress to approach reclassification as one of several related re- 
forms and to make it as nearly as possible ideal rather than to 
attempt as did the Reclassification Commission to make it 
fit the existing system with the least amount of change in 
procedure. 

Classification and Appropriation Technique. — A fundamen- 
tal question which the Reclassification Commission report does 
not squarely face is the relationship between the classification 
system and the appropriation acts, a question which in its 
broader aspects is in reality, "What control shall the Congress 
exert over the expenditures for personal services?" 

The classification could be applied to existing lump sum 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 209 

appropriations without any radical modification of the pres- 
ent practice. The administrators, in submitting their estimates 
of the needs for the following ^ ear, would use in their de- 
tailed supporting statements the sta'' "ard terminology of the 
classification, and the standard ^salary rates instead of the 
present undefined terminology and unstandardized rates. The 
administrators would be no more bound to follow the plan 
indicated in their supporting statements than they are at pres- 
ent, but if they departed from that plan, they would have to 
do so within the terms of the classification. Herein lies the 
marked difference between the two systems; the present one 
is one of uncontrolled lump sums whereas the proposed one 
would impose control through the classification. 

Difficulty would be encountered in applying the classifica- 
tion under the existing statutory system, because classification 
would deprive it of the little elasticity it now possesses. The 
administrator, though hampered in the conduct of his work by 
the rigid prescription of the exact number of positions he may 
have and the exact salary he may pay, manages to get along 
under the system because he is practically free to attach to any 
position any duties he may choose. If the appropriation act 
fixed the duties too, he would be bound absolutely by a law 
adopted several months in advance of the beginning of the 
actual performance of the work. 

The validity of the objection to a detailed duties classifica- 
tion, that it is inapplicable under a strict statutory system of 
appropriating for positions, depends in no small measure on 
the real value of that type of appropriation. In favor of it, 
the point is made that it gives Congress control over the ex- 
penditures for services. Attention should be called to the 
fact that it gives control to Congress over the salary the 
administrator shall pay for a position but it gives Congress 
no control over what kind of services the administrator shall 
get for the money. For its proper administration it requires 
that the Congressional committees each year shall go into 
the work of each office in fairly minute detail and have a 
thorough understanding of its precise situation, something 



2IO THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

for which the committees have no time and which, if 
they should attempt, would get them so lost in detail that 
they never would clearly grasp the larger issues. Not having 
time to do the work thoroughly, the committees are inclined 
to approve what was done last year with slight modifications, 
whereas what really may be needed is a radical revision of the 
whole situation. The Congress exercises rigid control but does 
so more or less perfunctorily. 

Whatever may be the opinion of members of Congress in 
respect to the value of this particular type of control, the al- 
most universal opinion among administrators and other gov- 
ernment employees is that it is at present one of the main im- 
pediments to good administration. Under it personnel 
administration degenerates into a mere game of keeping all 
the statutory positions filled all the time. From month to 
month the number of employees does not vary with the load 
which the office is carrying. Failing to fill vacancies in a lull 
does not leave more money available to meet periods of pres- 
sure. Any money saved by not filling vacancies reverts to 
the Treasury and it is a more or less generally accepted axiom 
of the game that if money is turned back the fact will be used 
as evidence that the appropriation is too large. The tendency, 
therefore, is to develop the statutory staff to the point where 
it will carry the maximum load and to keep it at this point re- 
gardless of the real requirement of the work. 

The statutory roll is peculiarly an impediment to good 
personnel administration, because under it salaries can be ad- 
vanced and promotions can be made only when vacancies occur 
or when Congress creates new positions or increases salaries. 
The only immediate reward for the deserving and efficient 
employee is the moral satisfaction of having done a good job, 
and the hope that when a vacancy occurs his services will be 
recognized. If a position becomes vacant and two employees 
by working hard demonstrate their capacity to carry the work 
of the vacant position in addition to their own, they do not 
necessarily gain anything by it. The administrator cannot 
divide any part of the salary of the vacant position between 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 211 

them. The statutory system offers little inducement to an 
employee to exert himself. When a vacancy does occur only 
one person of the class immediately below can be selected for 
it; and the administrator has to choose between several de- 
serving people. One gets the promotion and the others are 
disappointed. In each grade below the vacancy, one person 
ordinarily gets an advancement, not because that represents 
a fair distribution of rewards on the basis of merit or in the 
interests of the office, but because that is the only course open 
under the statutory system. A few years under this system 
is deadly to many employees, for it substitutes for a normal, 
healthy ambition to get ahead a peculiar type of governmental 
fatalism. Much of the individual inefficiency in the govern- 
ment service is the direct result of the statutory system of 
appropriations. 

Perhaps the greatest merit of a sound duties classification 
is that it would permit of the substitution of a controlled lump 
sum appropriation for the present indefensible statutory roll. 
It would likewise give control over the lump sum appropria- 
tions for services which are at present ineffectively controlled 
if controlled at all. 

The natural question at this point is, "How is the control 
to be secured through the classification?" The consensus of 
opinion undoubtedly is that some agency or agencies must be 
given at least inspectional powers to see that the classification 
is enforced. 

On first thought it might seem as if the question of whether 
a given position is necessary or not is really not one of clas- 
sification. The Congress, however, will doubtless take the 
position that some device must be created to prevent the de- 
velopment of top-heavy organizations with too many high po- 
sitions and not enough low ones. A weakness of some gov- 
ernmental agencies at present is that there has not been a 
sufficient division of labor and each employee performs all 
the processes, both high grade and low, that are necessary to 
the work. As a consequence all the employees must be quali- 
fied to perform the more difficult processes. A division of 



212 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

labor might permit of the employment of a relatively small 
number of highly qualified persons to devote all their time to 
the more difficult processes while a body of less well qualified 
assistants relieved them of routine processes. If this ques- 
tion is not inquired into fairly regularly, a tendency may grow 
up to distribute the difficult work over a large number of po- 
sitions so that all the incumbents may qualify for the higher 
positions in the classification. The statutory roll does not pre- 
vent this defective type of organization at all, but it does pre- 
vent any large number of employees from being paid for the 
higher duties. To no small degree this failure to provide for 
any division of labor, combined with a statutory roll, accounts 
for the fact that in the same office one employee will be getting 
a very much larger salary than another for exactly the same 
work and that the lower paid employee may be the more efficient 
of the two. 

At present, responsibility for proper organization and pro- 
cedure rests primarily upon the administrative officers and 
secondarily upon the Congress, and more particularly upon its 
committees. The proposal is to give the function of review- 
ing the organization and procedure in detail to the Budget 
Bureau. The Budget Bureau apparently, therefore, would be 
the proper agency to say in the first instance whether or not 
a position is necessary for the prosecution of a given under- 
taking. Its findings and recommendations on this point, of 
course, would be subject to review by Congress and its com- 
mittees, but it should be the agency constantly at work and 
adequately equipped to pass on questions of organization and 
management. 

If the Bureau of the Budget were charged with the admin- 
istration of the classification, the Congress could require that 
administrators in departing from the estimates underlying 
lump sum appropriations should secure the approval of the 
Bureau of the Budget. The Bureau of the Budget could by 
general rule give authority for the numerous minor and more 
or less inconsequential changes that are eminently desirable, 
requiring merely a report of the action taken, while it reserved 



CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND SALARIES 213 

for individual consideration the departmental proposals for 
really major changes. 

Although it would seem as if the Bureau of the Budget 
should ultimately administer the classification, it does not nec- 
essarily follow that it should have exclusive jurisdiction over 
its initial installation. Installation will be a large undertaking 
requiring a considerable temporary force and during the proc- 
ess many questions will come up requiring interpretation of 
the law. It will be a very different undertaking from admin- 
istering the classification after it has been adopted and installed. 
To assign the initial installation to the Bureau of the Budget 
at the very outset of its career is to cause it no little embarrass- 
ment. It would also involve giving to one man authority 
to pass on questions that need the broader point of view that 
comes from a representative board or commission. One possi- 
bility that would seem worthy of consideration is that the in- 
itial installation should be made by a commission representative 
of the Congress, the head of the Budget Bureau and possibly 
of the employees, and that after the installation is completed 
the subsequent administration should be in the hands of the 
Budget Bureau. 

General Summary of Classification. — In concluding this 
chapter on classification, it seems desirable to summarize briefly 
the essential features of a good system. 

The first requisite is a good classification of all positions 
on the basis of duties and responsibilities. This classification 
should contain for each class of positions found (a) a brief 
distinctive and descriptive title (&) a concrete, definite descrip- 
tion of the duties and responsibilities of the positions, il- 
lustrated where necessary by selected examples, and (c) a 
clear statement of the minimum qualifications for entrance. The 
classification should avoid in so far as possible the consolida- 
tion of positions with unlike duties into non-homogeneous 
grades, believed by the classifiers to be of like value, and should 
use as its primary unit a class made up of positions involving 
like duties and responsibilities, and requiring like qualifications 
on entrance. 



214 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The second essential is a fair and equitable salary scale, 
determined after a careful consideration of the various factors 
involved, such as (a) the training and skill required, (&) the 
degree of responsibility, (c) the salaries previously paid by the 
government, (d) the salaries paid for similar work in other 
employments, and (e) the cost of living. This salary scale 
should establish for all but exceptional classes, a range of sal- 
aries between a minimum and a maximum to permit of suit- 
able recognition of length of service and increased efficiency. 

The third requisite is that the classification should be in- 
stalled by a central agency with an adequate staff so that there 
may be uniformity of interpretation in its installation in the 
several departments. 

The fourth requirement is that a central agency with an 
adequate staff shall be given power to see that the administra- 
tive officers observe the classification. It should have power to 
classify positions. With respect to the selection of individuals 
to fill the positions where they are taken from within the 
service, it should have authority to investigate the action of 
administrators and to report thereon to the head of the Depart- 
ment, the President, and the Congress as the facts may warrant. 
It should have authority subject to the subsequent approval 
of the Congress to prepare specifications for new positions 
which must be immediately created and which cannot be classi- 
fied in existing classes and it must have power temporarily to 
fix salaries for them. 

The final requisite is that the Congress shall consider classes 
of positions as a unit and not individual positions and individual 
employees when it fixes salaries. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SELECTION BY PROMOTION FROM WITHIN VERSUS 
RECRUITMENT FROM WITHOUT 

When the several classes and grades of work required have 
been defined, the compensation rates fixed, and the specific posi- 
tions established and appraised, there next presents itself, in 
the theoretical analysis of personnel administration, the prob- 
lem of determining the method of selection to be employed for 
filling the several positions established. 

Methods of selection are basically two in number — selection 
from without the service, or recruitment, and selection from 
within the service, embracing reassignment and promotion.^ 
The problem goes, however, much deeper than the mere techni- 
cal choice between detailed methods. It goes to the nature of 
the whole personnel system. Upon its answer, as much as 
upon any other factor, and perhaps more, depends the attrac- 
tiveness of the service, the ultimate caliber of the personnel 
recruited and retained, and its morale. If compensation 
standards be regarded as the foundation of the personnel sys- 
tem, the lines of promotion and the levels of recruitment con- 
stitute its framework. 

^ The distinction between reassignment and promotion, as herein 
used, is merely that the one does not, and the other does, imply a change 
in grade on the part of the employee afifected. The term "promotion" 
is thus used, not in its loose sense as embracing every increase in com- 
pensation, but in its narrow sense, covering only advancement from one 
position to a higher position, the duties of which are clearly higher. It 
should be noted that, as used in the present chapter and throughout this 
volume, the term promotion embraces a change from one position to 
another of higher grade, whether in the same department or in another 
department. It is fairly common in federal personnel discussion to 
confine the term promotion to advancement within the lines of a par- 
ticular department, bureau, or branch, and to speak of advancement not 
so confined as a transfer, or, occasionally, a transfer involving promo- 
tion. From the present standpoint, however, such a change, is equally 
;yith a change taking place wholly within the lines of a single organiza- 
tion unit, a promotion; or, if further description be needed, it may be 
termed a promotion involving transfer. 

215 



2i6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Case for Selection by Promotion from Within the Service. 

— While the question under discussion is commonly termed that 
of recruitment versus selection from within, it should be noted 
at the outset that the real choice presented is between a competi- 
tion open to all, including those in the service, and a competi- 
tion confined to those in the service. Only in the rarest in- 
stances are those already in the service barred from competing 
on the same terms as those outside for any position that may 
be thrown open to general competition; and in the federal 
service such a restriction is entirely unknown. The question 
really to be considered is thus the extent to which it may be 
desirable, definitely, and as a matter of policy, to restrict se- 
lection to those within the service, rather than open it to a 
general competition in which those in the service are obliged 
to compete with those outside the service. 

By way of warning it should be said that the use of the 
term "restriction of selection to those within the service" is 
not intended to imply that the decision must be made irre- 
vocably between selection from within and general competition. 
If selection from within has been determined upon, but upon 
closer scrutiny of the several possible candidates within the 
service it appears that none of them possesses thedesired qualifi- 
cations in sufficient degree, general competition, of course, 
may still be invoked. In a few branches of the service it will 
be found indeed that an ironclad rule prevails which limits 
selection to those within the service regardless of the opinion 
which, at the particular time a vacancy arises, may be held by 
the responsible administrative officers as to the capacity of those 
in the service from among whom selection must be made. At 
a subsequent point the condition prevailing in those services 
will be set forth, and the general question of the desirability of 
an ironclad rule of this kind under certain conditions discussed. 

The obvious reason why the restriction of selection to 
those in the service may be urged as a matter of principle 
is that it increases the opportunity for advancement within 
the service, and still more, that it gives those in the service a 
definite assurance that under given conditions advancement 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 217 

will come. The anticipated results in terms of a better class 
of personnel recruited and retained in the lower ranks, and a 
better morale, are obvious. Great as is the desirability, in any 
personnel system, of multiplying and widening the avenues 
for advancement to the greatest extent possible, it is especially 
necessary in the personnel systems of governments where at 
best the opportunities for advancement are not apt to be as 
great as in private undertakings. 

Almost as important as the frequency and adequacy of the 
opportunity for advancement is its certainty. It is in the high- 
est degree desirable, in a well established service, that the per- 
sonnel should have a definite assurance that, unless an extraor- 
dinary reason compels a resort to outside selection, vacancies 
in the higher grades will be filled from within the service. Such 
an assurance, by making definite the vague expectation of pro- 
motion as a reward for faithful and zealous service, is of im- 
measurable value for working morale. 

Closely allied to this, but worth mentioning specifically be- 
cause so often overlooked, is the fact, already alluded to in tho 
preceding chapter, that if advancement is certain, compensation 
rates, especially in the lower positions, may be kept at a lower 
level than otherwise without hardship, since pressure will not 
be present in so great a degree to Increase the compensation of 
employees of long service who have been unable to secure ad- 
vancement. 

The obvious objection to a consistent restriction of selection 
to those already In the service is that It so severely narrows the 
area of selection. This is particularly applicable to the higher 
posts, since at this level first rate ability is in any case rare 
and hard to find. Unquestionably where the restriction of se- 
lection for the highest posts to those already in the service is in 
force, it not Infrequently results In the selection of a less capa- 
ble or brilliant officer than could have been found outside the 
service. But against the resulting loss of individual efficiency 
is to be set the increased efficiency, due to better morale and 
greater incentive, displayed by the rank and file of the service, 
and the intermediate officers. The knowledge that the highest 



2i8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

posts may be the reward of faithful and zealous service is* a 
force making for a day-to-day productiveness often far mor(^ 
valuable than any results that may be achieved by the chief ex- 
ecutives, however able, with a force but mildly interested in 
its work. 

Again, it is arguable that, regardless of the relative effi- 
ciency of the personnel which may be recruited from without 
the service as against that which may be promoted from within, 
adherence to selection solely from within the service leads to 
stagnation and conservatism; that frequent, or at any rate 
occasional, injection of new blood into a system, particularly at 
or near the top, is highly desirable. There can be no question- 
ing the force of this contention; and it is undeniable that, 
despite the unmitigated condemnation which has been wholly 
justifiably visited upon the practice of filling chief local offices 
with political appointees, occasionally one of these appointees, 
like the proverbial new broom, has swept his organization clean 
of mossgrown procedures and traditions which the permanent 
personnel, with an affection born of long association, had 
tenderly cherished. It may be contended that such a result is 
to be obtained, but with much greater frequency and certainty, 
by the filling of the higher posts with men from outside the 
service, of proved capacity and courage. 

Without in any degree depreciating the force of this con- 
tention, it should always be borne in mind that the occasional 
injection of directing personnel from without represents a 
merely sporadic attempt to cure a condition which is capable 
of prevention. Where a proper incentive to efficiency and to 
progress exists throughout a service, and such central control 
and supervision as will expose, by periodic survey and ap- 
praisal, as well as by current contact, unprogressiveness or 
incapacity of the directing personnel as soon as it appears, it 
is perfectly possible to prevent stagnation at the top from de- 
veloping; and only occasionally will conditions get to a point 
where there is imperative need of regeneration by one un- 
fettered by any previous familiarity with the organization. In 
this view, to the extent that stagnation exists at the top in the 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 219 

federal service it is chargeable to an improper system of ad- 
ministration in the large, and should be corrected by a revision 
of that system rather than by attempting, at irregular and 
accidental intervals, to galvanize the sluggish organism into 
action. 

Nor should the fact be lost sight of that the stagnation of 
the subordinate personnel, which results from the lack of op- 
portunity for advancement, is no less hurtful to efficiency than 
is stagnation in higher quarters. 

The considerations reviewed up to this point have to do 
solely with the actual efficiency of the service. There frequently 
enters into the discussions of this question a consideration of 
another sort, however, one that has to do with the relation of 
the administrative personnel, as a class, to the rest of the 
community. The natural tendency of a system in which the 
rule of selection from within is accepted as a guiding principle 
is to make entrance to the service practicable for the most part 
only at or near the lowest ranks. This in turn tends to restrict 
entrance to those in early life; and this tendency is often re- 
enforced, especially in Europe, by the fixing of a low maximum 
age limit for entrance. It is felt by many that a system of 
this type tends to develop an official caste — that it draws so 
clear a line between those who have adopted the public service 
as a career, and those who have not, and are consequently for- 
ever excluded from entering it, as to make of the official body 
a class apart from the community, irresponsive to public opin- 
ion; or even overbearing and arbitrary. 

This feeling underlies the vague objection so often made. 
to a "closed" personnel system — that it leads to a "bureau- 
cracy." When this epithet is hurled, it is often the bureaucracy 
of the former German Empire, or more particularly of the 
former kingdom of Prussia, that is in mind. It needs no 
arduous study of the differences between that country and the 
United States in the distribution of governmental powers and 
in social structure to make clear that no analogy can be usefully 
drawn from them. The position of the official class in the 
Central Empires was but one phase of their peculiar system of 



220 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

social and political organization. Apart from that social or 
political system it could not have existed. 

Turning to England and France, where the distribution 
of political power has been upon the same democratic basis as 
in this country, and where the social structure also (though 
still possessing many of the hierarchical characteristics of Ger- 
man society) has been nearer our own, we find a completely 
"closed" personnel system which is yet in no respect a caste 
or a class apart. Distinct and well recognized as is the civil 
career in those countries, there is no apparent tendency for the 
civil officers and employees, as a class, to stand apart from the 
rest of the body, social or political, or to assume a position of 
undue dominance or authority in public affairs. 

In view of the intangible character of the considerations 
just reviewed, their application to concrete conditions is by 
no means simple. The extent to which the restriction of selec- 
tion to those in the service may properly be carried in each 
particular branch of the service and each class of positions 
presents one of the most difficult, yet most interesting, of prob- 
lems in the whole field of personnel administration. The prob- 
lem is to determine, for each particular position, the prob- 
abilities of finding within the service, under normal conditions, 
substantially as competent a person as can be found outside 
the service; and, if the chances are unfavorable, to decide 
whether the general values which inhere in the principle of se- 
lection from within are sufficient to outweigh the inferiority 
in the quality of the service in that particular position which 
the application of the principle of selection from within may 
entail. The guiding principle would seem to be that selection 
should be restricted to those in the service unless it is made 
to appear that a substantially better class of service will be ob- 
tained by resorting to general competition. 

The actual probability of finding within the service eligible 
material for promotion that will compare favorably with what 
is available outside, will be the net resultant, of course, of the 
whole system of personnel administration — the success which it 
has achieved in recruiting good material, in retaining it, and 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 221 

in developing it in service; and the determining factors will 
thus be not merely or indeed chiefly current ones, but will de- 
rive from practices and conditions present a decade or even 
a generation ago. It is thus quite possible that, were all the 
higher offices now filled by political appointment forthwith 
placed upon a merit basis, the application of the principle of 
selection from within the service could for some time be made 
to these posts only after careful examination in each instance. 
The very fact that there has not been, up to the present, in 
the federal service, an opportunity in many lines of service to 
rise to the highest ranks has served to deter from entering 
the service some of the material most eligible for promotion 
to those ranks, and to produce, in many branches of the 
service, a personnel lacking in the qualities of leadership and 
executive capacity. This condition, doubtless, would make it 
somewhat difficult for some time to apply rigorously the prin- 
ciple of selection from within the service. 

The practicability of confining selection to those in the 
service will also obviously depend upon the length of time the 
particular branch of the service has been in existence and the 
rate at which it has grown. In the government at the present 
time are to be found not a few services which may, in the 
course of time, reach a condition in which substantially all 
the positions of advanced rank could be filled by promotion, 
but which have not yet attained that condition, having expanded 
at a rate far in excess of any possibility of supplying the per- 
sonnel of advanced rank by promotion from the lower ranks. 
An excellent example of a service of this kind is the Bureau 
of Internal Revenue. The specialized nature of the work of 
this service and the many gradations of skill and experience 
which are required in its performance will make it entirely 
possible in the course of time, should such a course be decided 
upon, to recruit substantially the entire personnel of this service 
at three or four levels, all of them relatively low, corresponding 
perhaps to the titles of clerk, examiner, junior accountant, and 
law clerk. It will be possible to recruit at each of these grades 
persons with little or no previous practical experience, to in- 



222 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

struct them in the work of the service, and from this force 
to develop by gradual promotion "all the higher grades of execu- 
tives, expert accountants, auditors, and lawyers that the service 
may require. But in the period just passed, when the service 
has multiplied itself manifold in the course of a couple of 
years, such a course would have been obviously impossible. 

In view of the variable factors involved, it is manifestly 
impossible to dogmatize upon the extent to which selection 
from within should be insisted upon in any particular branch 
of the service, or for any particular class of positions. At each 
point the decision must be based upon a detailed study of the 
conditions prevailing and likely to prevail in each branch of 
the service for each class of work, supplemented when neces- 
sary by an appraisal of the caliber of the material actually avail- 
able. One line of cleavage is, however, fairly obvious. On 
the one side lie those classes of service, and those graded series 
of positions, in which all, or essentially all, the equipment neces- 
sary for the higher positions is naturally and regularly obtained 
by the employee in his progress through the lower positions. 
On the other side fall those classes of service, or those graded 
series of positions, in which there is required for the higher 
positions an educational equipment, whether general or techni- 
cal, and in some cases even a type of practical experience, not 
obtainable in the work of the lower grades. It need hardly 
be said that the line of demarcation between these two classes 
of cases is by no means clear-cut at all points. For purposes 
of discussion, however, the distinction is entirely practical. 

With respect to those classes of service which lie clearly 
within the first class, the principle would seem to be wholly 
clear; selection from within is to be the rule in all ordinary 
cases. Only when extraordinary circumstances demand is^ re- 
cruitment to be resorted to. To what extent does this principle 
now find recognition in the federal service? 
Existing Conditions: Positions in the Natural Line of 
Promotion. — Curiously enough, it is only in the unclassified 
service, in those two classes in which selection has been 
put upon a merit basis that the principle of selection from 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 223 

within for positions in the natural line of advancement has re- 
ceived explicit recognition. In the medical corps of the Public 
Health Service, and in the Diplomatic and Consular Service, 
in the one case by statute, in the other by executive order, 
selection from within is made the invariable rule, from which 
the administrative officers may not depart.^ 

Over the remainder of the unclassified service, there 
exists no formal basis of selection whatever. No statute 
or executive order controls the discretion of the admin- 
istrative officer in making his choice between recruitment and 
selection from within. The same is true, needless to say, of 
the classified positions in the excepted or non-competitive 
classes. In respect to the classified competitive service, the 
civil service act gives no recognition whatever to the principle 
that, other things being equal, selection from within is to be 
preferred to recruitment. No provision of the act is designed 
to limit the freedom of the appointing officer in this respect. 
Public Health Service. — In the Public Health Service, the 
statute ^ provides that original appointment to the commis- 
sioned medical corps shall be only to the rank of assistant sur- 
geon, and that an assistant surgeon can be promoted to the 
next grade — that of passed assistant surgeon — only after four 
years' service. While the speed with which a passed assistant 
surgeon may be advanced through the successively higher 
grades is not restricted by statute, the intent of the provision 
is, of course, to establish a graded system with appropriate 
periods of service in each grade before advancement to the 
next ; and the regulations which have been promulgated by the 
President on this head so provide.^ 

* In the case of the Diplomatic and Consular Service the appointing 
officer is nominally the President and the executive orders which he has 
issued governing that service might be regarded, therefore, as being merely 
for his own guidance. Since the selection is, however, as set forth in a 
subsequent chapter, actually out of his hands, it is from a practical stand- 
point correct to regard the executive orders in question as constituting a 
limitation on the discretion of the State Department. 

^ Act of January 4, 1889, 25 Stat. 639. 

'The periods of service required in each grade by these regulations 
for eligibility for promotion to the next grade are as follows : service as 
assistant surgeon, four years; as passed assistant surgeon, eight years; as 
surgeon, until a vacancy occurs above. 



224 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Assistant surgeons and passed assistant surgeons must 
pass a written and physical examination before they can be 
promoted. If they fail in the first examination they are given 
a second one at the end of one year. If they fail in the second 
examination they are reported to the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury as not qualified for promotion and their resignations arc 
requested. Vacancies in the grade of senior surgeon are 
filled according to seniority after a review of the officer's record 
and a physical examination. Assistant Surgeons General are 
in charge of the divisions of the Service at Washington. 
They are selected by the Surgeon General and detailed from 
the regular commissioned personnel. The detail is for four 
years, after which they may be again detailed for four years; 
after the expiration of the second detail they are not eligible 
for a third detail unless they shall have served four years at 
some other duty. At the expiration of their detail they return 
to the grade and number they would have occupied if not 
assigned as chiefs of division. The position of Assistant 
Surgeon General at Large is filled by the appointment of an 
officer who has served as Surgeon General or of a senior 
surgeon according to seniority, after a physical examination 
and a review of the officer's record while in the service. The 
Surgeon General is one of the officers who is appointed by the 
President. 

Specifically, the present statute makes it impossible for the 
Service to bring into its regular commissioned personnel a spe- 
cialist of standing, however desirable or necessary his employ- 
ment might be. The statute does not indeed prohibit the em- 
ployment of such a physician by the Service; in fact, physi- 
cians are appointed attending specialists, or acting assistant 
surgeons, but they stand outside the regular medical cdrps of 
the Service and are not eligible for promotion within its ranks.^ 
Whether this condition, to date, has ever proved an embarrass- 
ment to the Service is not known; but even if it has not, the 

^ In 1918 Congress authorized the creation of a PubHc Health Serv- 
ice Reserve, to which physicians may be commissioned in any grade. 
(Act of October 2.^, 1918, 40 Stat. 1917.) On June 30, 1920, there were 
438 reserve officers on active duty. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 225 

statutory rule should never, in a matter of this kind, be so 
absolute. 

The statute in question has been in force for about 25 years ; 
so that all the present higher personnel of the service has thus 
been selected by promotion from within. The recognized ef- 
ficiency of that personnel would make academic any discussion 
of the wisdom of restriction of selection to those within the 
service as a general policy, even if such discussion were called 
for on principle, which it is not, since this is a type of service 
in which few of the objections to rigid adherence to selection 
from within have much force. Nevertheless it is worth point- 
ing out that of all the services of the government the Public 
Health Service is by no means the one which might have been 
expected to be selected for the sole application, by statute, of 
the unalterable rule of selection from within. There would be 
far more reason (though such a course would by no means be 
inherently desirable) in filling some of the higher positions in 
the Public Health Service by the appointment of distinguished 
public health experts from without the service than in filling 
the highest places in the postal service, or the internal revenue 
service, or other cognate services, from outside. 

It should be pointed out, however, that there is in the 
Public Health Service, a "scientific personnel" consisting of 
sanitary engineers, chemists, bacteriologists, zoologists, etc. 
On June 30, 1920, the number of scientific employees num- 
bered 178 in comparison with 200 commissioned medical 
officers. The salaries paid the scientific personnel are com- 
mensurate with those paid to the commissioned officers. The 
regulations provide for six classes of the scientific personnel, 
and for periodic promotions after examination. Appoint- 
ments are ordinarily made only tO' the lowest grade, but pro- 
vision is made for original appointment to the higher grade, 
if the applicant has had previous experience particularly adapt- 
ing him to the special duties that he is expected to perform. 
Diplomatic Service. — In the diplomatic service the prin- 
ciple of restricting selection to those within the service hardly 
may be said to have much room for application, since the posi- 



226 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tions of chief of mission (that is, ambassador or minister) are 
filled commonly, as already seen, by politics rather than merit, 
so that the highest position in the permanent service is that of 
diplomatic secretary of class one, of which the salary is $3,000. 
So far as applicable the principle is, however, recognized in 
the regulations of 1909, by which the system of appointment 
and promotions in the diplomatic service was established, by the 
provision (Section 3) that "initial appointments from outside 
the service to secretaryships in the diplomatic service shall be 
only to the classes of third secretary of embassy, or, in cases 
of higher existent vacancies, of second secretary of legation, or 
of secretary of legation at such post as has assigned to it but 
one secretary. Vacancies in the secretaryships of higher classes 
shall be filled by promotion from the lower grades of the 
service, based upon efficiency and ability as shown in the 
service." 

Consular Service. — By the regulations promulgated by 
President Roosevelt in 1906, all the higher positions in the 
consular service beginning with the grade of Consul Class 7 
(of which the salary is $3,000) ^ must be filled by promotion 
from the lower ranks of the consular service (embracing the 
two lowest classes of consuls, and consular assistants, interpre- 
ters, and consular clerks), or from positions in the Department 
of State. These regulations are less drastic in their exclusion 
of the possibility of filling the higher posts from without the 
service than are those governing the Public Health Service; 
for the permitted entrance levels are higher, and, what is more 
important, no requirement is fixed of a given length of service 
in any given grade before promotion. The regulations, there- 
fore, do not on their face prevent the entrance of a person into 
one of the lower consular ranks, or into the State Department, 
and his very speedy elevation by "promotion" to one of the 
highest grades in the consular service, a procedure which might 
preserve the appearance but would grossly violate the principle 

^ Or under a recent amendment to the statutes and consular regula- 
tions, beginning with the grade of vice-consul de carriere of Class II of 
which the salary is $2,750. » 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 227 

of promotion as opposed to recruitment. Despite the absence 
of regulations, however, the tradition is well established, and 
has not been departed from in recent years, that promotion to 
a higher rank shall come only after a measurable length of 
service in the rank next below and in due course. 

It will be noted that in both the services just discussed, 
the recognition of the principle of selection from within has 
taken the extreme form of a mandatory rule, admitting of no 
exceptions, even under extraordinary circumstances. Gen- 
erally speaking, the incorporation of any principle of personnel 
practice in an ironclad rule, which can be departed from, if 
at all, only with the greatest difficulty, is manifestly undesir- 
able. It is almost always better to restrict the statute or bind- 
ing regulation to a mere enunciation of the principle, leaving 
some discretion in its application in the hands of the central 
personnel authority. The principle of selection from within is 
no exception to this rule. Only in the very clearest cases would 
it seem desirable to enact that principle in a form beyond the 
reach of the ordinary processes of personnel administration. 

In this view, even an executive order would seem too un- 
yielding a form for this purpose; while its incorporation in 
statute is manifestly wrong. Whatever may be thought of the 
wisdom of applying the principle of selection from within so 
rigorously to the Public Health Service, there can be no ques- 
tion that the enactment of that principle by statute, leaving no 
possibility of any departure from the rule except by special 
act of Congress, is improper. 

Coast and Geodetic Survey, — The appointment of the com- 
missioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey by the 
President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 
was first provided for by the Act of May 22, 1917,^ which 
stated that "no person shall be appointed aid or shdil be pro- 
moted from aid to junior hydrographic or geodetic engineer 
or from junior hydrographic or geodetic engineer to hydro- 
graphic or geodetic engineer until after passing a satisfactory 
mental and physical examination conducted in accordance with 

' 40 Stat. 88. 



228 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce, except 
that the President is authorized to nominate for confirmation 
the assistants and aids in the service on the date of the passage 
of this act." While this act does not state specifically that 
original appointment must be to the lowest grade, it accom- 
plishes this by indirection by providing for appointment in 
the higher grades through promotion from the lower ones. 
The regulations provide that an aid, the lowest rank in the 
commissioned service, shall be appointed by promotion from 
the position of junior engineer, deck officer, or observer, who 
are "appointed by the Secretary of Commerce from a list of 
eligibles established by competitive examinations conducted in 
accordance with the rules of the United States Civil Service 
Commission." 

Examining Force: Patent Office. — Though legal provi- 
sion for selection by promotion has been made in only the 
three services mentioned, this method had been firmly estab- 
lished in a number of other services through tradition. In 
perhaps no service within the federal government or elsewhere 
is the principle of restricting selection to those within the 
service more rigorously adhered to than in the case of the ex- 
amining force of the Patent Office. For many years it has 
been in general the custom for every member of that force, to 
enter the service as an assistant examiner of the lowest grade, 
all positions in the higher ranks, up to the rank of examiner- 
in-chief, being filled by promotion from the rank next below. 
Yet nothing in any statute, departmental order or even office 
order prevents the appointment of a person from outside the 
service to any grade in the examining corps that the Secretary 
may desire. In recent years the tradition of restricting selec- 
tion to those in the service has been extending itself to the 
positions of examiner-in-chief, which are presidential posi- 
tions, and is even beginning to give promise of extension to 
the offices of Assistant Commissioner and Commissioner. 
Postal Service. — The postal service is perhaps an even 
more remarkable instance of the consistent observance of the 
principle of selection from within, resting on tradition alone. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 229 

By tradition the postal service has but a single level of recruit- 
ment — the lowest. Aside from the postmasters of the first, 
second, and third class offices, who were, until recently, all 
political appointees, and aside from the chief positions in the 
department at Washington, all postal officers enter the service 
as clerks or carriers. Curiously enough, in his order of March 
4, 191 7, establishing the system of competitive selection for 
presidential postmasters. President Wilson gave no recogni- 
tion whatever to the principle of selection from within ; estab- 
lishing instead a system of open competitive examination.^ 
No reason has been given officially for the adoption of the open 
competitive rather than the promotional method for these 
posts. The position of assistant postmaster, a position which 
is in the larger cities far more difficult and responsible than 
that of postmaster in the great majority of post offices, has 
now for some years been filled by promotion from within the 
service; and the important and responsible position of division 
superintendent of railway mail is likewise so filled. The 
recognition of this principle in the selection of postmasters 
thus would not have involved, except in the case of the larger 
cities, any real raising of the level to which competitive em- 
ployees might rise. So long as the four-year tenure remains 
in force, it would be difficult, of course, to secure the whole- 
hearted competition of many of the most capable of the per- 
manent employees ; for some would hesitate to take the chance 
of being dropped at the expiration of the statutory term. The 
same difficulty is present, however, in securing the competition 
of the best qualified persons outside the service. The Presi- 
dent, therefore, pending the enactm^ent of legislation placing 
all postmasterships in the non-presidential class, with indefi- 
nite tenure (thus making them a part of the classified competi- 
tive service), should convert the present system of open com- 
petition for postmasterships to one of promotion. 

The view here taken differs from that of the National Civil 

^ Moreover the nature of the tests and standards which have been 
developed by the Civil Service Commission for the conduct of examina- 
tions under this order have not been such as to give any advantage to 
those with experience in the postal service. 



230 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Service Reform League, or at least of its officers. In a letter 
to the President, written in 19 19, called forth by certain rumors 
then current as to pending changes in the system of selection 
for presidential postmasterships, the officers of the League 
said: 

Objections lie against the promotion to the important of- 
fice of Postmaster without examination of an employee within 
the department. The fact that there is no promotion system 
worthy of the name in the federal service is not a valid reason 
why the executive should acquiesce in the free selection from 
within the service to an office of the responsibilities of presi- 
dential postmaster. Here again the proposed change would 
subject the President and the Postmaster General to importu- 
nities from Senators, Congressmen, and organizations of em- 
ployees for the appointment of particular individuals.^ 

To follow this reasoning is difficult. The system of pro- 
motion from within is now applied and for some years has 
been applied to positions in the postal service far exceeding 
in importance the position of postmaster at many, if not most, 
of the presidential offices. The League has never taken ex- 
ception to this system of selection, except in so far, as it has 
taken the general position that some system of promotion 
should be devised not only for the postal service, but for the 
federal service as a whole which would make certain the elimi- 
nation of political considerations in promotions. Consistency 
would seem to require that the same position should be taken 
with respect to presidential postmasterships. They are pe- 
culiarly positions to which the subordinate postal employees 
should be able to aspire. The correction of present conditions 
is not to be sought in the application of open competition where 
promotion is appropriate, merely because the present procedure 
in open competitive examination affords better protection 
against improper influences than does the present procedure 
in promotion. The remedy lies rather in the development of a 
procedure in promotion that is adequate. 

Nor is it entirely certain that even without any further 

* Good Government, vol. 36, p. 15. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 231 

development of the promotion procedure, the result apparently 
feared by the League would ensue. It is not generally un- 
derstood to be the fact that under present conditions the selec- 
tion of assistant postmasters or superintendents of mail or de- 
livery in the larger post offices is to any important extent the 
subject of solicitation or importunity by Congressmen or or- 
ganizations of employees on the part of particular individuals. 
It is difficult to see why these elements should be any more 
active in the case of presidential postmasters once those posi- 
tions are placed upon a merit basis. The fact that the confirma- 
tion of the Senate would be required for the promotion of a 
postal employee to a presidential postmastership may indeed 
be advanced as a reason why such a result should ensue. It 
is believed, however, that with a promotion system properly 
safeguarded as in the open competitive system now in force, 
the confirmation of the Senate would become a mere formality. 
So far as the available evidence indicates, no attempt is now 
made by the Senators in whose hands the confirmation lies to 
intervene on behalf of any one particular individual. 

The Civil Service Commission, in successive annual re- 
ports, has gone on record as favoring the selection of all "presi- 
dential" officers on a merit basis. One of the principal con- 
siderations urged by the Commission has been that unless this 
action is taken it is impossible to make the service a "career," 
which would seem to imply that once the positions in question 
were placed upon a merit basis they would normally be filled 
from within. Respecting postmasterships, however, the Com- 
mission, in a recent public statement,^ has taken the position 
that "there should be no iron-bound rule that all positions of 
postmaster should be filled through the promotion of subordi- 
nates. In the opinion of the Commission such a policy would 
not be in the best interests of the service and would not be 
sustained by public sentiment." 

^Letter to the Washington Evening Star, February i8th, 1920, com- 
menting on an article relative to the fiUing of the postmastership of 
Boston by open competitive examination, and the barring of the assistant 
postmaster from the examination because of failure to meet the "ex- 
perience" requirement. 



232 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The position has already been taken in the foregoing pages 
that an "iron-bound" rule requiring the filling of higher posi- 
tions through the promotion of subordinates is appropriate 
only in very few cases. It would be difficult, however, to find 
a class of positions to which such a rule could more properly 
be applied than the position of postmaster. The position is 
one which, in the nature of the case, cannot require a person 
with a specialized knowledge or experience obtainable only out- 
side the service itself. On the contrary it is only within the 
service itself that the specialized knowledge and experience re- 
quired can be obtained. If, then, the service is unable to de- 
velop among its enormous resources sufficient executive ability 
to be equal to the demands of even the largest post offices, the 
difficulty is with the system of recruitment, compensation, as- 
signment, promotion, etc., and these radical difficulties, which 
would reflect themselves through the whole personnel of the 
service, at all levels, could be ameliorated in no appreciable 
degree by the selection of a postmaster from time to time from 
without the service. 

In point of fact, despite the low level to which recruitment 
to the postal service is confined, despite the wholly inadequate 
compensation standards which have obtained in recent years, 
and despite the failure to provide sufficient opportunity for the 
subordinate administrative personnel to gain experience by 
progressing from smaller to larger offices, there is no warrant 
for believing that even at the present time sufficiently good ma- 
terial cannot be found in any of the larger offices to make the 
resort to general competition for the position of postmaster 
necessary. 

The restriction of recruitment to the postal service Jo the 
grade of carrier or clerk is believed to be undesirable in that 
it affords no opportunity for the entrance into the service of 
recruits of better educational equipment than are ordinarily 
likely to enter the positions specified, resulting in a smaller 
amount of suitable material for promotion to the higher admin- 
istrative posts. This aspect of the matter will be considered in 
a subsequent section of this chapter in connection with a con- 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 233 

sideration of the general question of the proper levels at which 
recruitment should be permitted. Here it need only be pointed 
out that if the lowness of the entrance level in fact does pro- 
vide insufficient administrative material, the deficiency may be 
made up by resorting to open competition for some of the sub- 
ordinate administrative posts rather than for the very highest 
administrative posts in the service — those of postmaster. 
War and Navy Departments. — A special phase of the 
problem of selection from within presents itself in the case 
of the War and Navy department. Here is found a condition 
in which the advancement of the personnel is checked at a 
given level, not merely relatively, as it is by the resort of gen- 
eral competition, but absolutely by the filling of all the higher 
administrative posts by the designation of military and naval 
officers. Since entrance to the officers corps of either of these 
services is impossible in peace times except through the regular 
course of training early in life at the military or naval academy/ 
or throijtgh original appointment to the lowest grade after 
examination, the system of filling important administrative 
and technical posts in the staff branches of the military and 
naval establishments with military or naval officers necessarily 
results in an absolute stratification of the service. 

The question is presented, therefore, to what extent this 
system, so pernicious from the standpoint of personnel ad- 
ministration, is justified by the needs of the military and naval 
establishments. Properly to answer this question would in- 
volve a consideration of the whole theory of military versus 
civilian functions in the conduct of these two establishments. 
Some go so far as to assert that all functions of purchase and 
supply, from the point of initial estimating and planning to 
the point of actual delivery to the depots maintained by the 
forces in the field, are essentially civilian in their character, and 

^ In both the Army and Navy the medical and dental officers are ex- 
cepted from this statement and in the Navy Department the so-called 
pay officers, who have to do with supplies and accounts, are likewise to 
be excepted. In all these cases, however, the tradition of entrance at 
an early age into the lowest rank and advancement only by gradual pro- 
motion through the grades is maintained, so that for the present purpose 
the result is the same. 



234 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

that no necessary purpose is served by treating these functions 
as a part of the business of the miHtary establishment. Those 
who hold this view would create a distinct civilian organiza- 
tion for those functions and thus solve at one stroke the per- 
sonnel problem here under discussion, though, needless to say, 
the solution of this problem is the least of the advantages 
which these advocates urge for their proposal. Without neces- 
sarily accepting this radical view, it seems clear that certain 
at least of the functions now performed by the military estab- 
lishment could properly and profitably be placed upon a civilian 
basis. 

Civilian Engineers : War Department. — Particularly would 
this seem to be the case with the civilian engineering 
work now carried on under the direction of the Chief of En- 
gineers of the army, a field in which the personnel question 
here involved presents itself with especial force. These engi- 
neering operations, which as is well known have to do princi- 
pally with river and harbor works (though embracing also the 
work of coast fortifications), are conducted upon a district 
basis, the country being divided for that purpose into 50 
districts. The chief officers of each district organization are 
army engineers, and it was long the tradition that no civilian 
member of the force could ever rise to the position of engineer 
in charge of a particular operation or work; but this tradition 
was greatly weakened during the war owing to the demand for 
the services of the army engineers in active military duty. It 
is needless to point out that the best civilian engineers will not 
enter or remain in a service in which the door of promotion 
is closed so early and so absolutely. Numerous proposals have 
been made, running back into the eighties, and one is pending 
in Congress as these lines are written, for relieving the army 
engineers of responsibility for this purely civilian engineering 
work by the creation of a department of public works or some 
similiar civilian agency. With the more general arguments in 
favor of such a course the present volume is not concerned, but 
its advantages from the standpoint of personnel administration 
are obvious. These proposals, it should be *noted, do not of 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 235 

necessity imply that the employment of army engineers for 
this civilian engineering work of the government is to be dis- 
continued. They mean simply that the work would be upon 
a civilian basis, and that army engineers when employed in that 
work, while remaining members of the military establishment, 
would be regarded as on detail to the civihan department 
and as having there only civilian status. 

Even if it be assumed, however, that the responsibility for 
civilian engineering work should remain with the army engi- 
neers, and that it will always be necessary to operate certain of 
the staff functions upon a military rather than a civilian basis, 
the alternative presents itself of modifying the present system 
of selection of officers to the extent of permitting the commis- 
sioning in appropriate rank of civilians who by long service 
in these staff branches of the military and naval establishments 
have equipped themselves for administrative responsibility. 
Needless to say, this method was resorted to on a large scale 
during the war, and no small number of officers thus commis- 
sioned have been retained as part of the permanent establish- 
ment. The method should now be made a normal, instead of 
merely an emergency, one. Its adoption will require, of course, 
a break with the old tradition that any army officer must be 
regarded as qualified and available for any kind of administra- 
.tive duty ; but this tradition has always been an absurdity from 
the standpoint of personnel administration, and has unquestion- 
ably resulted in enormous waste and inefficiency in the mili- 
tary establishment itself. There is no reason why the officers' 
corps of the army should not be recruited and maintained, 
at least in part, so far as the staff positions are concerned, upon 
the theory that obtains in every other type of organization, 
namely, that the best results are secured through the develop- 
ment of specialists and their constant retention in the work in 
which they have specialized.^ 

^ Incidentally it may be pointed out that the traditions of the Army 
and the Navy have differed widely in this respect at certain points. Par- 
ticularly has this been so in connection with the officers concerned with 
supplies (other than ordnance and cognate material) and accounts. In 
the Navy these officers have been recruited as a separate class, have not 
been instructed in naval science, and have been constantly kept at work 



236 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Attitude of Civil Service Commission. — It might be as- 
sumed that, in a matter of such vital and fundamental im- 
portance, the Civil Service Commission, by securing the pro- 
mulgation of appropriate rules by the President, would have 
remedied this major omission of the civil service law. But 
such is not the case. The civil service rules are equally silent 
upon the point. The Civil Service Commission from the be- 
ginning has taken the position, wholly indefensible from the 
standpoint of the interests of the personnel system as a whole, 
that the decision to resort to general competition for the fill- 
ing of a position lies wholly in the hands of the appointing 
officer. 

The failure of the Commission to take any interest in this 
matter as one concerning the personnel system generally is all 
the more remarkable in view of the position which it has as- 
sumed with respect to transfers from one department or estab- 
lishment to another. By the civil service rules (Rule X, i) 
no transfer may be made to any position in the competitive 
service "above the lowest class in any grade" ^ unless the 
appointing officer certifies that the position cannot be filled 
adequately by promotion. The reason for this rule was stated 
by the Commission at the time of its promulgation to be that 
"injustice is done when a person is brought into a department 
over the heads of those deserving promotion." 2 It need hardly 
be emphasized that the injustice is far greater when the per- 
son so brought in comes, not from another branch of the 

along their chosen line. In the Army, pursuant to statutory requirements, 
the Quartermaster s Corps, as the officers of this class have been termed 
has been recruited by a system of four-year details of regular officers of 
the Ime. It is at least an interesting speculation whether the admitted su- 
periority of the administration of the naval establishment in the matter 
o; supplies during the war was not in a measure attributable to the suoe- 
riority of its personnel theory in this field. 

The terms "class" and "grade" are used in this rule in senses which 
seem precisely contrary to their ordinary uses, and to their use in this 
volume. The civil service rules (as well as the law itself) suffer in 
c earness at not a few points because of the lack of any standard nomen- 
clature m personnel matters. It is to be hoped that the reclassification 
of the employees m the District of Columbia now under consideration 
will begin an improvement in this respect. 

(igoJ,Tis"^'''* ^^^°'* °^ ^^^ ^"'^^"^ ^*^*^' ^'^'^ ^^"'"'''^ Commission 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 237 

service — where the excellence of his work, the length of his 
service, or the absence of opportunity for further advancement 
there may make him even more deserving of consideration from 
the service than those over whose heads he is brought in — but 
from outside the service. It would seem then that the very 
least the Commission could do in consistency would be to rec- 
ommend to the President a rule providing that no position 
should be thrown open to general competition unless the ap- 
pointing officer certifies that the position cannot be filled ade- 
quately by promotion. 

But undoubtedly it should go much further. Especially 
since selection by open competition is peculiarly the Commis- 
sion's own province, and it may be expected to have expert 
knowledge of the results likely to follow from the use of that 
method in any case, the Commission, under the rule, should 
reserve to itself the right to say finally whether open competi- 
tion should be resorted to, or selection ' from within insisted 
upon. Such a rule is already found in several states and 
municipal jurisdictions, and is believed to have worked well. 
Were such a policy adopted and consistently enforced by the 
Civil Service Commission or other central personnel authority, 
it might shortly develop the highest value in an altogether dif- 
ferent direction — that of facilitating the elimination of politics 
from selection. Were the President, without changing the 
classification of excepted positions, to extend the proposed rule 
to them (including positions excepted by statute as well as by 
the rules) the result would be forthwith to establish the merit 
tradition for those positions. If the appointing officer could 
secure the consent of the Commission to fill the excepted posi- 
tion from outside the service, he would still be wholly un- 
trammeled, of course, in his choice, as now; but the mere fact 
that he had been able to secure the right to appoint in this way 
only on the strength of a representation that the interests of 
the service demanded it would be a powerful moral influence 
making for a reasonably meritorious selection. If, on the 
other hand, the Commission declined to permit selection from 
without, or the appointing officer failed to request it, the person 



238 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

selected from within the service would promptly come to enjoy 
substantially a competitive status, whatever his legal status. 

The policy contended for might even be applied, with 
modifications, to presidential positions. The Civil Service 
Commission, of course, could not control the discretion of the 
President as to the method of selection to be employed by him 
for these offices, but he could require the Commission, perhaps 
acting in consultation with the head of the department, to 
recommend to him the method to be employed. The recom- 
mendation of the Commission unquestionably would shortly ac- 
quire a strong moral force. 

It is not intended in the foregoing to propose that the 
Commission should intervene in this way in every individual 
case in the personnel system. In most services and at cer- 
tain points in every service, it is entirely feasible to determine 
upon the basis of experience a general policy of either restric- 
tion of selection to those within or of resort to general compe- 
tition, and no participation of any central personnel authority 
is necessary in these cases when the general policy defined is 
observed. In this area, only the departures from the general 
policy require approval or check by the central personnel 
authority. At other points, however, owing to the relative 
infrequency of vacancies and the relatively small number of 
those within the service from among whom selection is possi- 
ble, it would be unwise to attempt to define in advance any 
general policy. Here the best results will be obtained if each 
vacancy as it arises is made the occasion for a separate de- 
cision as to the method by which it shall be filled ; and it is in 
these cases that the responsibility of the central personnel au- 
thority enters. In some cases doubtless only by an examina- 
tion of the available material for promotion will the Civil 
Service Commission be able to satisfy itself that the proposal 
of the appointing officer that general competition be resorted 
to is justified; and if the result of such examination is adverse 
to the contention of the appointing officer, it has had the value 
of making certain that whatever person the appointing officer 
does appoint is sufficiently qualified. In other cases, without 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 239 

formal examination, a mere appraisal of the available material 
within the service, based upon their service history and past 
performance, will be sufficient to enable the central authority 
to decide if resort should be had to open competition. 
Attitude of Reclassification Commission. — The recom- 
mendation of the Reclassification Commission on this head 
would seem to go even further than is here proposed. The 
Commission recommends "that when vacancies in the higher 
classes are not filled by transfer or reinstatement, they be filled 
by promotion of properly qualified employees as determined by 
competitive civil service examination, and that ordinarily open 
competitive examinations for the filling of such vacancies be 
held only when three such eligibles cannot be secured from 
those already in the service." ^ 

In the absence of any central requirement of the character 
here contended for, it might be anticipated that the principle 
of selection from within had received but scant observance in 
those branches of the classified service in which it is applicable. 
In point of fact, however, despite the absence of any statutory 
or other central requirement, and despite, too, the absence of 
any definite or clearly expressed policy, in the departments 
themselves, the principle of restricting selection to those within 
the service has been very generally followed in the classified 
competitive service.^ This existing tendency to select from 
within, however, has been restricted generally to selecting 
from among the employees of the organization unit in which 
the vacancy occurs or from the employees of adjacent organiza- 
tions. The precise limits of the area of selection form the 
subject of a subsequent section. 

It need hardly be added that this characteristic of the ex- 
isting situation is subject to many, and in some cases important, 
exceptions. Since existing practice has been determined wholly 
by departmental action, usually of an informal kind, it has 
varied not a little from service to service and from time to 

^ Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 124. 

*As already indicated in a preceding chapter, the exception of a posi- 
tion from competition, whether by rule or by statute, has generally 
meant that it will be filled by the appointment of one outside the service. 



240 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

time. Moreover, settled traditions may be discerned in any 
case, of course, only in those services which are well established. 
Recent years have witnessed the creation of a number of new 
services and organizations in the government, and in recruiting 
for these services the great majority of positions have neces- 
sarily been filled from outside the service. There thus exists 
in these services as yet no well defined tradition on this head ; 
nor in the case of any of these services that has come to at- 
tention has the problem been grappled with in advance and a 
policy formulated and promulgated. 

Central Control of Selection by Promotion from Within. — 
In view of the prevalence of the practice of recruitment from 
within by a process of promotion, the question of the means 
employed for the selection of employees to be advanced is one 
of importance. The framers of the civil service act unques- 
tionably intended that there should be some control in respect 
to this matter. The act thus lays down the basic principle that 
"no person shall ... be promoted . . . until he has passed 
an examination or is shown to be specially exempted from such 
examination in conformity herewith." (Sec. 7.) ^ Comment- 
ing on this provision the Civil Service Commission in 1899 
pointed out that "No classified clerk or employee who is not 
specially exempted in conformity with the provisions of the act 
can legally be promoted without examination. In other words, 
exemption from examination for promotion is not intended to 
be made general. The intention of the law is that to be eligible 
for promotion to any class or place the applicant must have 
shown fitness on examination appropriate for the class or 
place." 2 

The Commission went on to point out, however, that 
despite the manifest intention of the act, up to that time it had 
not been found feasible to give it practical effect ; ^ and the 

* It will be observed that there is no requirement that the "examina- 
tion" provided for be competitiiK. 

* Sixteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(18^), p. 102. 

^ In its first report, in 1884, the Commission said that the need of 
caution in making great changes which a new system involved, and the 
fact that the Commission had too much work at the outset, were per- 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 241 

same or other difficulties appear to have persisted down to the 
present time.^ 

haps in themselves adequate reasons for not dealing at once with the 
difficult subject of promotions. In the second report it is stated il\at 
the observations of another year had shown more conclusively the need 
of interposing some examination or test, both to secure to the most 
meritorious their proper claims to advancement as opportunities occur, 
and also to shut out the solicitations and influence of outside parties from 
securing or attempting to secure promotions without merit. It added 
that it had become obvious that notwithstanding the difficulty of devising 
a system which should give merit its just reward, and should yet leave 
the appointing officer his full right and responsibility for his office, sorne 
rules upon the subject of promotion by examination ought to be promul- 
gated at the earliest day practicable. In its third report the Commission 
again stated the need of promotion rules and the reasons for failure to 
provide such rules. 

^ For the first thirteen years of the operation of the act, even the 
requirement of the act that there should be examination for promotion 
in all cases not specifically exempted was not observed. By the rules 
adopted May 6, 1896 (Rule XI, Clause 4), however, the Commission 
was instructed to promulgate regulations governing promotion, the rule 
declaring that "Regulations to govern promotions shall be formulated by 
the Commission after consultation with the heads of the several depart- 
ments, bureaus, or offices. It shall be the duty of the head of each de- 
partment, bureau, or office, when such regulations have been formulated, 
to promulgate the same, and any amendments or revocations thereof 
shall be approved by the Commission before going into effect." 

The rule, however, fixed no time limit within which such regulations 
were to be formulated. It provided that "Until the regulations here au- 
thorized have been approved for any department, bureau, or office in 
which promotion regulations approved by the Commission are not in force 
promotions therein may be made from one class to another class which 
is in the same grade, and from one grade to another grade, upon any 
test of fitness, not disapproved by the Commission, which may be de- 
termined upon by the promoting officer," thus leaving the matter vir- 
tually in the same situation as it had been in previously. But several 
provisos were annexed to this rule, the observance of which would have 
meant a very considerable participation of the Commission in the process 
of promotion. They were as follows : 

"Provided, That no promotion of a person shall be made, except 
upon examination provided by the Commission, from one class to an- 
other class, or from one grade to another grade, if for original entrance 
to said class or grade to which promotion is proposed there is required 
by these rules an examination involving essential tests different from or 
higher than those involved in the examination required for original en- 
trance to the class or grade from which promotion is proposed : And 
provided further. That no promotion of a person shall be made, except 
upon examination provided by the Commission, to a position in which, in 
the judgment of the Commission, there is not required the performance 
of the same class of work or the practice of the same mechanical trade 
which is required to be performed or practiced in the position from which 
promotion is proposed ; but a person employed in any grade shall not, 
because of such employment, be barred from the open competitive ex- 
amination provided for original entrance to any other grade ; And pro- 
vided further, That no promotion of a person shall be made to a class 
or grade from original entrance to which such person is barred by the 
age limitations prescribed therefor or by the provisions regulating ap- 
portionment." 

No procedure was provided, however, for the bringing to the at- 



242 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Under the revision of the rules made in 1903, and still 
in force, provision is made for the promulgation of regula- 
tions governing promotion. Such regulations have been made, 
however, only for a small and irregular area of the service,^ 
so that over almost the whole of the service, practice is gov- 
erned only by the provisions of the rules, which the rules 
themselves (Rule XI, 2) provide are to be applied "until 
regulations to govern promotions are made." 

These provisions, so far as they bear on the subject under 
discussion, are as follows : 

. . . Promotions may be made upon any test of fitness 
not disapproved by the Commission, which may be determined 

tention of the Commission cases in which promotion might be made in 
violation of these provisos and, in point of fact, they never had much effect. 
Under the provision authorizing the promulgation of regulations by 
the Commission in consultation with the heads of departments regula- 
tions were provided from time to time for various classes of employees. 
The regulations generally provided merely that promotions should be 
made upon such tests of fitness as the head of the department, with the 
approval of the Commission, might prescribe, and under these regula- 
tions, a system of nominal examinations, purely non-competitive in char- 
acter, was for some time applied in several of the departments and serv- 
ices. 

* The portions of the classified service to which the Commission has 
actually promulgated promotion regulations as contemplated by the rules 
are: 

Treasury Department 
Mint and Assay Service 
Customs Service 
War Department 
Ordnance Department at Large 
Engineer Department at Large 
Quartermaster Corps 
Military Academy 
Navy Department 

Navy Yard Service 
Interior Department 
Reclamation Service 

Indian Irrigation and Allotment Service 
St. Elizabeth's Hospital _ 

Department of Commerce i 

Lighthouse Service 

Coast and Geodetic Survey (in relation to persons employed on 
vessels) 
It need hardly be pointed out how utterly lacking in reason or con- 
sistency is the area of application of promotion regulations by the Civil 
Service Commission as thus outlined. In point of fact, the initiative" in 
promulgating such regulations would seem in most cases to have come 
from the departments or services concerned rather than the Commission. 
It hardly can be said that the action of the Commission in these areas 
of the service has been of much more significance than its complete in- 
action over the remainder of the service. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 243 

upon by the promoting officer, subject to the following limi- 
tations : , 

(b) In case of promotion to a position for which the en- 
trance tests are different the person to be promoted must first 
pass an appropriate examination before the Commission.^ 

Substantially the same provisions are found in the several 
departmental promotion regulations which have been promul- 
gated in accordance with the rule. 

The provision requiring promotion to be made "upon any 
test of fitness not disapproved by the Commission which may 
be determined by the promoting officer" is a dead letter, as 
promoting officers do not advise the Commission of the nature 
of the tests, if any, which they employ in making selection for 
promotion, and the Commission has consequently no basis for 
disapproving such tests. As pointed out in the following chap- 
ter, no tests are applied over the greater part of the service. 

The essential provision is thus the one requiring that in 
case of promotion to a position to which the entrance tests 
are different from those fixed for the position which the per- 
son to be promoted then occupies, he must first pass an ap- 
propriate examination before the Commission." This limita- 
tion, it will be observed, applies only "in case of a promotion 
to a position for which the entrance tests are different." The 
practical effect of this rule is to require examination by the 
Commission only where the proposed promotion is out of the 
ordinary direct line. As long as the promotion is in the direct 

^ But Section (c) provides that "Any employee in the classified In- 
dian Service may, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, be 
promoted without examination to the position of superintendent of an 
Indian school, upon a statement of the Commissioner of Indian Aftairs 
that the employee possesses the requisite business and executive quali- 
fications to fill the position, and the Commission will on such statement 
issue the necessary certificate." 

^ Even this requirement, it should be noted, is not absolute, the Civil 
Service Commission having been authorized in 1907 "in its discretion, 
looking to the good of the service only, to waive requirements for exam- 
ination and to substitute for such examinations so waived such other 
tests of fitness and capacity as the Commission may decide." Executive 
Order, November 22, 1907. This order, however, is seldom invoked. 
No statistics as to its use are currently compiled; but it is stated that 
it was employed only four times during 1919 (Memorandum of the Sec- 
retary of the Commission to the Institute for Government Research),. 



^44 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

line no intervention by the Commission is required by the rule, 
no matter how much higher may be requirements which would 
be set on entrance examination, were one held, for the posi- 
tion to which transfer is proposed than for the position already 
occupied by the candidate for promotion. 

With respect to proposed promotions from one position 
to another in the natural line of advancement, however wide 
the gap between the lower and the higher position, or be- 
tween the position in which the employee promoted originally 
entered the service and that to which he is now promoted, pro- 
motion may be made by the administrative officer wholly with- 
out control or supervision by the Civil Service Commission.^ 
Whether this condition is a desirable one is a question on which 
there will be a diversity of opinion. Some contend that a 
central control or supervision is in no case necessary — that the 
interest of the administrator in securing efficient service is suf- 
ficent to insure that recruitment will be resorted to where 
selection from within will not yield suitable appointees. At 
the other extreme is the view that every promotion should be 
subject to the vise of the central personnel authority to in- 
sure that the employee promoted is worthy of promotion.^ 

To adopt either of these extreme views is neither necessary 

^ The civil service rules (Rule X, 8, e) provide also "that where the 
promotion involves a transfer from one branch of the service to another 
the Commission shall be satisfied that the person proposed for such 
transfer and promotion possesses experience, qualifications, or training 
which are required for the proper performance of the duties of the 
position to which transfer is proposed and which render necessary in the 
interests of the service the filling of the position by his transfer, rather 
than by an original appointment or promotion in the manner provided by 
the civil service act." This rule is so infrequently applied, however, that 
its importance is negligible. 

^ This is the view in the regulations for promotion examination 
found in certain jurisdictions, in which examination for promotion is 
required to be held by the central personnel authority even where the 
number of employees eligible for examination is no more than the num- 
ber, usually three, from among whom the appointing officer has, under 
the rules, free selection. In such a case the examination can serve no 
purpose other than to bar from promotion the employee who fails to 
pass the examination. As will be more fully set forth in the following 
chapter, the Reclassification Commission has recommended that a sys- 
tem of competitive promotion examination be set up over the whole of 
the federal service. It is not clear from the Commission's report whether 
its recommendation contemplates the holding of examinations even under 
the circumstances just cited. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 245 

nor desirable. Some branches of the service have such a wealth 
of available material that it may safely be assumed by the 
central personnel authority that a fully competent employee 
can be found for any post which becomes vacant. In respect 
to other branches no such assumption can be made safely, be- 
cause of the small number of eligible employees, or the wide 
gap between one position and another, in difficulty and re- 
sponsibility. What is called for, therefore, is a detailed specifi- 
cation by the Civil Service Commission, after careful study, 
of the particular positions to which promotion may be made 
only with its approval, such approval to be given, where the 
Commission deems necessary, only after examination by the 
Commission of the person proposed for promotion. 

Were a general system of promotion examinations by the 
Civil Service Commission to be instituted, as recommended by 
the Reclassification Commission, such examinations while in- 
tended primarily as a means of selecting from among all the 
employees eligible for promotion the one best qualified for the 
promotion, would incidentally prevent the promotion of any 
employee not qualified as judged by the Commission's stand- 
ard. The whole question here under discussion is closely 
bound up, of course, with the methods employed in making 
selection for promotion, which form the subject of the follow- 
ing chapter. In that chapter the view is taken that generally 
speaking the most practicable method of determining promo- 
tions in the federal service is to leave the determination in 
the hands of properly constituted administrative boards, in 
which the Civil Service Commission would have ex-officio 
representation. Such representation would manifestly furnish 
a complete and effective safeguard over the whole service 
against the promotion of the unfit. 

Note should be taken here of a statutory provision aimed 
to prevent the promotion of the unfit which has never been 
given practical effect. In 19 12 Congress authorized the Civil 
Service Commission to install in the departments at Washing- 
ton a system of efficiency records, and directed among other 
things that the system should provide for a standard of effici- 



246 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ency failing which an employee would be ineligible for promo- 
tion. By subsequent enactment the responsibility for the estab- 
lishment of the system was transferred to the Bureau of Effici- 
ency. Because of inadequate appropriations, and for other 
reasons not here material, no progress worth mentioning to 
date has been made in the development of the system called 
for by the statute. It is believed, however, that even were it 
fully established the specific provision mentioned would be of 
little value. Only in the most exceptional cases, if even then, 
would an administrative officer attempt to promote an employee 
who had displayed so little capacity in the performance of his 
present duties as to be rated below a normal standard of effici- 
ency. 

In discussing any phase of the question of control or su- 
pervision of promotions by the Civil Service Commission, it 
must be borne in mind always that effective control or super- 
vision is out of the question unless the Commission has at its 
disposal adequate means for ascertaining what the duties of a 
given position actually are. Without such means, and their 
capable utilization, changes in duties may be made by the oper- 
ating departments without the knowledge of the Commission 
which are actually promotions, though in appearance mere re- 
assignments. 

Existing Conditions: Positions Not in the Natural Line 
of Promotion. — In every large organization and indeed 
in many fairly small ones, subordinate positions or groups of 
positions are encountered, the duties of which do not tend to 
fit those occupying them for any position more advanced in 
responsibility or difficulty or in the value of the work per- 
formed. The extent to which such positions exist in large scale 
enterprises is perhaps not fully appreciated by those who have 
not given the matter specific attention. The facile assumption 
is made that each employment leads naturally to the one above. 

There are two factors which may cause certain positions to 
become "blind alleys." The first is found in positions which 
are concerned wholly with subsidiary or auxiliary phases of 
the organization's work and thus do not give to those occupying 



PROMOTION' VERSUS RECRUITMENT 247 

them any knowledge or experience in the substantive operations 
of the organization, which is, of course, indispensable to 
any worth while advancement. A limited field of advancement 
may, and usually does exist, of course, within the particular 
branch of the organization devoted to such auxiliary or in- 
stitutional activity; but this field is virtually negligible when 
considered in comparison with that presented by the operating 
branches. 

The other factor which operates to give certain classes of 
positions their "blind alley" character is that of education. The 
advanced positions may require an educational equipment, 
whether technical or general, which the work of the lower 
grades in no wise furnishes. In the technical branches illustra- 
tions of this condition abound. A mechanical draftsman in 
order to qualify for the higher grade of mechanical engineer 
must pursue a specialized course of instruction in mechanical 
engineering quite distinct from and, in many respects, in no 
wise related to, the duties which he performs as mechanical 
draftsman; the mere typist who aspires to become a stenog- 
rapher must pursue a specialized course of instruction in 
stenography and perhaps also in English; and the like is true 
of the laboratory assistant, who desires to become a physicist 
or chemist or bacteriologist, or of the clerk employed in a 
branch of the government in which legal services are required 
who aspires to become a lawyer. 

Nor is the situation confined to the technical branches of 
education; it presents itself also, though in a more debatable 
way, in respect to general educational equipment. This phase 
of the problem presents itself particularly in connection with 
the filling of the higher non-technical administrative posts, but 
it is found also in the case of not a few technical positions 
of the higher grades. The service may furnish ample oppor- 
tunity for the acquisition of the requisite technical informa- 
tion by the personnel in the lower grades; but it may be felt 
that the higher position requires in addition a background of 
general education and culture not likely to be possessed by the 
subordinate personnel. This particular phase of the problem. 



248 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

however, will receive fuller consideration in a subsequent sec- 
tion. 

These two factors cause the service to become stratified, 
with progress from one stratum to the next virtually impossi- 
ble. That this condition, both from the social standpoint and 
from the standpoint of the morale of the service, is undesirable 
is too obvious to require more than mere mention. Some 
hold, however, that this stratification, with its blind alley 
positions at the end of the lowest strata, must be accepted as 
inherent in the modern large-scale organization, and that it is 
futile for the framer of personnel policies to attempt to run 
counter to the powerful drift of economic processes. What- 
ever the validity of this view, social policy demands for the 
public service, at least, that every effort be made to escape 
from this condition or to moderate it so far as can be done 
without undue injury to the service itself. This can be done 
on the one hand by enlarging the opportunity for each sub- 
ordinate employee to acquire a well rounded familjarity with 
the operations of the organization as a whole; and, on the 
other, by assisting those in the lower grades to obtain the 
educational equipment that is required for the work of the 
higher. 

This matter is one which hitherto has received but little 
attention in most branches of the federal service. The admin- 
istrative officers concerned have failed apparently to appreciate 
its importance, though it has long been a familiar theme of* 
discussion among industrial personnel managers and among 
those interested in personnel generally. The limited develop- 
ment which this feature has obtained in the federal service is 
strongly suggestive of the need already pointed out for the 
provision in each department and in each major organization 
unit of an officer specifically charged with responsibility for the 
development of personnel policies. 

To attempt to consider specifically all the numerous points 
in the federal service at which the question of granting pref- 
erence to those in the service for positions not in the natural 
line of promotion may arise, would be impracticable, and of 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 249 

doubtful value, but a few of the points at which it presents 
itself in an important way may profitably be mentioned. 

Sub-Clerical Positions. — In the clerical service, a question 
arises at the very lowest level of that service in respect to pro- 
motion from the so-called sub-clerical positions — positions such 
as messenger, storekeeper, watchman, etc. — to that of clerk. 
The number of clerks required in the lowest grade is so 
great in proportion to the number of sub-clerical employees 
that recruitment from outside the service must be resorted to 
in any case for this grade, but the question is whether promo- 
tion from the sub-clerical grade to the lowest clerical grade 
should be permitted in any case. When the proposal to open 
the clerical service to promotion from the sub-clerical was first 
made in 1895, it was rejected by President Cleveland, who 
aptly declared : 

After a good deal of consideration I cannot make myself 
believe that messengers, etc., should be subject to the promo- 
tions provided for. The theory of the amendment may not 
be amiss, but I am confident that in practice we should have in 
the messenger, etc., grade persons who entered it for the pur- 
pose of promotion, and who would be looking for that instead 
of striving to perform well the work assigned. Every mes- 
senger and every watchman, after two years' service and ex- 
amination, backed and supported by Senators and Representa- 
tives, would make it very uncomfortable for the head of his 
Department until he obtained the increased salary he coveted; 
and in the meantime he would make a very poor messenger 
and watchman. 

I am certain the proposed amendments would increase the 
perplexities of the executive officers of the Government with- 
out any compensation in the way of better public service. 

In the following year, however, he was persuaded to change 
his mind, and a rule was promulgated permitting such pro- 
motion after two years' service ; promotion to be made by com- 
petitive examination within each department, with certification 
of the eligibles in the order of their grades in the same man- 
ner as for original entrance to the service. This procedure 
though no longer appearing in the rules, is incorporated \r\ 



250 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the departmental promotion regulations above referred to and 
is still in force. 

Clerical Positions. — Although the rule thus requires com- 
petitive examination, the great number of vacancies in the 
clerical service in proportion to the number of sub-clerical 
competitors makes it reasonably certain that any one who 
passes the examination will receive promotion to the clerical 
grade, so that the examination is in reality merely qualifying. 
The number of persons rejected by the Civil Service Commis- 
sion in these promotion examinations from the sub-clerical to 
the clerical grade is proportionately much larger than in any 
other type of promotion examinations, yet it is believed, never- 
theless, that many sub-clerical employees succeed in passing 
the examination and in securing promotion who would be al- 
together unlikely to pass the open competitive clerical exami- 
nation with ratings sufficiently high to secure them appointment 
under normal conditions of supply and demand. If this be 
so, the present practice in permitting promotion from the sub- 
clerical to the clerical grades on the basis of what amounts 
to a mere qualifying or pass examination may be assumed to 
result in the infiltration into the service of under-qualified 
persons, at first into the lower grades and hence, ultimately, 
by mere seniority or the absence of better material, perhaps 
into an administrative post of no little responsibility. The 
remedy is to be found in the proposal already made, that the 
promotion examinations in such cases involve a qualifying 
standard very considerably above that required for qualifying 
in the open competitive examination for these grades. 

Stenographic Positions. — Stenographic positions present 
a somewhat similar question. They usually offer more rapid 
advancement to the higher salary rates than do the clerical 
positions of the lowest grade, although the ultimate possibilities 
are frequently not so good, and consequently in most large per- 
sonnel systems those in the lowest clerical grade seek to secure 
promotion to the stenographic positions. The same is true of 
typists, adding machine operators, and other persons perform- 
ing clerical work of a mechanical nature. In the federal service 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 251 

this type of promotion has never been permitted, but em- 
ployees have been required to compete in the regular open ex- 
aminations. If assurance can be had that the high examination 
standards contended for will actually be applied, it would seem 
desirable on the general principle of enlarging the opportu- 
nities for promotion within the service that promotion of this 
kind should be permitted in the federal service. 

Statistical Accounting and Legal Positions. — In the filling 
of posts in those technical services which lie close to the cleri- 
cal service — the statistical, the accounting, and the legal services 
— the practice in the federal service has varied widely. In a 
number of cases these positions have been filled by the promo- 
tion of persons from the clerical service. In others, recruit- 
ment from without the service has been resorted to. In the 
legal service, recruitment has unquestionably been resorted to 
far more widely than promotion. In the case of the other 
two classes of service a general statement would be very diffi- 
cult to make. 

Had the choice of one of the other of these methods of 
selection been based, in every case, upon a reasoned policy and 
supported by an actual appraisal of the material available, the 
absence of any uniformity would be no occasion for unfavor- 
able comment. It is believed, however, that examination would 
disclose that the varying decisions in this matter, varying not 
only from service to service but from time to time within the 
same service, have been based for the most part on no con- 
sistent policy or practice, but have been largely the expression 
of the varying or shifting views of the several administrative 
officers concerned. 

The service actually secured in this field through selection 
from within is believed to have been poorer, on the whole, 
than would have been secured by general competition. Ex- 
ceptions to this statement are numerous, and there is no reason 
why such a statement should be true at all if proper safeguards 
and methods are employed. Until they are applied, the service 
will continue to fill positions of the character in question in 
many cases by the promotion of persons originally recruited as 



252 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

clerks who do not possess even approximately the same de- 
gree of capacity as could be obtained by general competition 
or indeed by drawing upon the available material within the 
service as a whole rather than merely upon that immediately 
adjacent to the particular vacancy to be filled. 

Other Technical Positions. — The question of filling all 
technical positions, for which an extensive preparation is 
ordinarily required, from the ranks of lower technical posi- 
tions not involving such preparation, a question illustrated by 
the case of the mechanical draftsman who seeks promotion 
to the position of mechanical engineer of the lowest grade, is 
similar to that above referred to in connection with stenographic 
positions in the clerical service, though, of course, the levels 
of the service involved are considerably higher. From the 
standpoint of policy the matter is almost wholly one of the 
severity of the qualifying examination. In the federal service 
it has not been common to permit promotions of this kind, 
recourse being usually had to general competition. Occa- 
sionally, however, promotions of this character have been per- 
mitted. Given a sufficiently high standard of qualifying ex- 
aminations, they should be encouraged. Given the standard 
of examination which is believed to obtain at the present time, 
such promotions will, and to the extent that they are employed 
they doubtless do, result in a somewhat inferior class of service 
than would be obtained through the medium of general com- 
petition. 

Selection from Within as Affected by Educational Stand- 
ards at Entrance. — A phase of the problem of selection 
from within, which though of primary significance has been 
mentioned thus far only in passing, is the question of the edu- 
cational standards applied at the entrance gate or gates to 
the service. The value of a well rounded general educational 
and cultural equipment for an administrative position in the 
public service is a question on which opinions may differ 
widely. In the business world, the widest variations of prac- 
tice are found. Instances can be cited of large and successful 
business organizations which draw their executives exclusively 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 253 

from the ranks of college graduates, recruiting such gradu- 
ates indeed with the express purpose of developing them into 
executives as rapidly as possible. At the other extreme are 
equally large and successful organizations, of which certain 
railroads are outstanding examples, which admit recruits to 
their service only at so low a level as to preclude entirely the 
possibility of a college education and to make even a secondary 
schooling wholly unlikely, and which fill even the positions of 
highest responsibility exclusively by the advancement of those 
who have entered at that level. 

The tradition of the public service in this country has been 
averse historically to the restriction of public office of an ad- 
ministrative character to the "educated" classes. The his- 
torians of the Jacksonian democracy have justly pointed out 
that the doctrine of rotation in office had its roots not merely 
in the policy that as many as possible should have a share in 
the honor and emoluments of public office, but in the sincere 
belief that the average man was fully equal to the demands of 
office. To no small degree this historical attitude has influ- 
enced the practice even in those jurisdictions in which person- 
nel administration has been developed most fully, including 
the federal service. 

In the clerical service, in which the question is presented 
perhaps in its most important form, the general rule prior to 
the war had been to recruit only at the lowest level, that of 
clerk, typist, or stenographer at entrance rates of $600 to 
$1,000, and to regard those so entering, or rather the men so 
entering, for the tradition has been against the advancement 
of women beyond fairly low levels, as eligible through long 
service to the highest administrative positions of a perma- 
nent non-political character; and, generally speaking, to re- 
strict selection for those positions to those already in the 
service, in the particular bureau or service in which the vacancy 
occurs. While there have been occasional exceptions to the 
rule, it may be said that in normal times the permanent com- 
petitive positions of a purely administrative, as opposed to a 
technical, character have quite generally been filled in this 



254 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

way.^ During the war the rapid expansion of some of the 
permanent services, and the creation of many new ones, in 
great part suspended this tradition; and in the abnormal con- 
ditions which have characterized the months since the cessation 
of hostihties the situation on this head has remained confused. 
It may be assumed, however, that with the restabilization of 
conditions the tradition will regain most of its old-time force. 
The British Personnel System. — The tradition of thus 
filling the higher non-technical administrative positions ex- 
clusively by the promotion of those who have originally en- 
tered the service in the lowest clerical grades presents a sharp 
contrast to the practice prevailing in the British Civil Service. 
In that service, the higher non-technical administrative posi- 
tions are filled in perhaps 80 or 90 per cent of the cases by the 
promotion of clerks recruited not at the lowest grade but at an 
intermediate grade, through special examination. Those re- 
cruited in the lower grade are commonly termed second divi- 
sion clerks,^ while those recruited at the upper grade are termed 
first division clerks. Those who enter as second division clerks 
may indeed advance to the higher grades of clerical work; 
but to the administrative posts classed as "first division clerk- 
ships" they may advance (after eight years of service) only 
in the rarest instances.^ These posts are normally reserved 
for the "first division" clerks who, though they perform routine 
work at entrance, are regarded as merely in training for ad- 
vanced posts. 

The theory responsible for this stratification is seen in 

^ A recent illustrative exception to this rule was the filling of the 
position of Chief Clerk, Bureau of Education, by open competition. It 
is doubtful if there is another position of Chief Clerk of an established 
bureau in the federal service which has been filled other than by selec- 
tion from within. - 

^ There is a still lower grade known as "boy clerks" ; but employment 
in this grade is regarded as temporary, the boy, who must be between 
14 and 17 years of age at entrance, being required to leave the service 
when the upper age limit is reached if he has not obtained appointment 
to the second division grade. 

^ The second division clerks have been insistent for years in their 
demand that the opportunity for promotion to the first division be en- 
larged, and the tendency has been increasingly in this direction. It is 
not known at this writing what effect the war may have had, or may 
have, upon this situation. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 255 

the age limits and in the character of the examinations fixed 
for the two grades. Second division clerks at entrance must 
be between the ages of 17 and 20, the plan obviously being 
to recruit boys who have had substantially a secondary school 
education, and the examination for entrance to the second 
division follows fairly closely the course of instruction in the 
English secondary schools. The first division clerks, on the 
other hand, are required to be between 22 and 24 years of age, 
and the examination is closely fitted to the course of study in 
the universities.^ The theory thus is that the higher posts 
should be filled chiefly by those who have had the advantages 
of a broad general education, and that only in case of very 
exceptional merit should those whose education has been re- 
stricted to the common or secondary school standard be per- 
mitted to advance to an administrative post of major or even 
intermediate responsibility.^ 

Applicability of British System to American Conditions. — 
It would not be correct, however, to leave the impression 
that those who were recruited for clerical positions in the fed- 
eral service at the Ipwest grade before the war were invariably 

^ "As a matter of fact, the papers in mathematics and natural science 
are based upon the requirements for honor degrees at Cambridge, and 
the papers in classical and other subjects upon those at Oxford; and 
thus it happens that by far the larger number of successful candidates 
come from one or the other of these two great universities." Lowell, 
The Government of England, vol. I, p. 163. The fact that the examina- 
tion favors those who come from Oxford and Cambridge and that these 
institutions are traditionally the institutions for the upper middle class 
and the aristocracy has caused the British system to be condemned as 
an aristocratic institution and, in practice, it doubtless is. So far as the 
theory here under discussion is concerned, however, the essential feature 
of the British system is merely that it sets a high educational standard 
for entrance to the first division. This theory in no wise would be im- 
paired were the British Civil Service Commission so to alter the content 
and form of the examinations as to give those who have studied at 
the provincial (that is, traditionally the middle class) universities an 
equal opportunity with those from Oxford and Cambridge. Were this 
done, the system would be aristocratic only to the extent that any re- 
quirement of educational qualifications is aristocratic. 

^ It should be noted that there is nothing in the rules to prevent a 
second division clerk who, by self-education or evening study, has mas- 
tered the subjects of the examination, from entering the first division 
examination on an equal footing with those who have studied at the 
universities. The facilities for study of this kind in England and the 
high standard of scholarship required by the examiners make it virtually 
impossible, however, for such a case to occur. 



256 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

inferior to the typical first division clerk entering the British 
service. Such is far from the case. The compensation for- 
merly paid at entrance to the lowest clerical grades was in 
excess of that obtaining for the same grade of service in private 
employment, and, as respects Washington, an added induce- 
ment was offered by the many opportunities in that city, for 
securing a professional or academic education of which oppor- 
tunities the federal employees are enabled to take advantage 
by reason of the favorable working hours in the departments. 
Owing to these factors the lowest clerical grades in the past 
contained a goodly percentage of persons of educational quali- 
fications not greatly, if at all, below the average of the first 
division clerks in the British service; and although many of 
the recruits of this type left the service after a relatively short 
period, others remained and, despite the influence which 
seniority exercises in the federal promotion system, have found 
their way to administrative positions. These factors have made 
possible the practice of filling the higher non-technical admin- 
istrative positions by the successive promotion of those re- 
cruited at the lowest grade. In view of the altered conditions 
in respect to compensation in the service at the present time, 
it is doubtful whether this policy can continue to give equally 
good results. It is thus a question whether a system, follow- 
ing in theory the British system, and encouraging the en- 
trance into the federal service, at a somewhat higher level, 
of persons of superior educational attainments may not be 
desirable. 

Doubtless some will urge that awarding a higher entrance 
rate to one merely because he possesses a superior general 
education is "undemocratic" or even "aristocratic." It is not 
believed, however, that the objection will stand exanlination. 
The requirement of a technical education where appropriate is 
everywhere accepted as unobjectionable on any grounds of 
social or political philosophy, and it is diffcult to see why 
emphasis on an academic education, where appropriate, is any 
more open to attack on these grounds. The entire absence 
of class character in the student population of the United 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 257 

States makes any analogy on this head drawn from British 
or other foreign experience wholly valueless. 

At one point, however, the British tradition should be 
sharply departed from. Under the British practice, the first 
division clerk has a first call on superior promotions, and it 
is only in case of extraordinary merit that a second division 
clerk is able to displace him. This is manifestly unjust. The 
two types of recruits should be placed upon an equality, and 
as each vacancy occurs the promotion should be made upon a 
fair competition (whether formal or informal) between all 
those eligibles, however recruited. If the theory be valid that 
superior educational attainments give to the employee a value 
equal to, if not greater than, that resulting from a longer appli- 
cation to and familiarity with the routine and detailed working 
processes of the organization, the employee who entered at 
the higher level because of those educational advantages in 
general should have no difficulty in demonstrating his superi- 
ority. If he is unable to do so there is, of course, no reason 
why, merely because of the superiority of the average of his 
type, he should be preferred to the employee who entered at 
the low level. 

The view here taken with respect to the run of non-technical 
administrative positions is applicable also to such specialized 
services as the postal service. Substantially the recommenda- 
tions here made have been made in fact by a former first 
assistant postmaster general, whose subsequent administra- 
tive success in other branches of the government service lends 
a special interest to his views. Discussing the problem of the 
higher supervisory positions in the postal service, and par- 
ticularly the question of the best method of filling postmaster- 
ships now that the merit basis has been established for these 
positions, after pointing out that the present requirements for 
entrance to the postal service cover merely a common school 
education, he says : ^ 

In the interest of the postal employees and those who are 
hereafter to enter the postal service, it should be recognized 
^ The United States Fost-Ofdce, by Daniel C. Roper, p. 284. 



258 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

that the increasing complexity of the service gives rise to the 
need for training in some way a superior class of postal em- 
ployees who may be promoted into positions of responsibility 
both as experts and as executives. The object of this would 
be to broaden the source from which the Government may 
secure men well prepared for the high positions, including that 
of postmaster. 

It is just as necessary that the army of postal employees 
should be officered by men of specialized training as it is that 
our Army and Navy should secure a large number of their 
officers from the graduates of West Point and Annapolis. 
. . . Those who enter the postal service as clerks and carriers 
should be eligible for promotion to any position in the postal 
service, but before rising above the rank of foreman they 
should be required to take an examination of a higher grade 
than that under which they entered the service. Another class 
of recruits to the postal service should be young men espe-, 
cially selected, employed at a nominal wage, and trained in 
the Post Office Department at Washington and in model train- 
ing post offices. These young men should be required to pass 
frequent examinations, and after completing the course be 
available for appointment to clerkships in the Department and 
to any work in the field, including minor supervisory positions 
at post offices. 

It should be noted that the argument here is not for the 
present system of applying the principle of selection from 
within to all positions except those designated as "postmaster" 
and filling that by open competition; it is for the recognition 
of a level of recruitment higher than that represented by the 
average of the clerks and carriers now recruited, with special 
training provided for the capable recruits from both levels, 
and with both competing freely for the higher posts of the 
service. It proposes substantially the application to the postal 
service of the British theory, qualified as above, urged in the 
discussion of the clerical service. 

Provision of Educational Facilities. — In the foregoing 
sections emphasis has been placed upon the extent to which 
advancement in the service must depend upon educational 
equipment; and it has been pointed out that if the experience 
in the work of the lower grades in no wise furnishes such 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 259 

education and is in no wise equivalent to it, it must be obtained 
by the employee, if at all, entirely apart from his working 
duties. In the case of many positions, however, the working 
conditions make it highly improbable, if not altogether im- 
possible, that their incumbents can acquire the education neces- 
sary for advancement. They do this, of course, in the first 
place, by requiring the employee's time. Even a normal work- 
ing day will prevent the employee from giving the time re- 
quired for the more difficult kinds of preparation. Frequently 
they deprive him of access to educational institutions both be- 
cause of hours of labor and of the place in which his duties 
must be performed, though the situation on the first head is 
continually improving, owing to the development of facilities 
for evening instruction. Finally, in some positions it is doubt- 
less true that the duties of the position tend to hinder the em- 
ployee from obtaining the necessary education merely by af- 
fording him so little opportunity for the exercise of his intel- 
ligence as to make concentrated mental effort outside of work- 
ing hours difficult, Consequently, the suggestion has been 
put forth in various guises that the government should rec- 
ognize an obligation toward those in the service who are sub- 
stantially cut off from advancement through lack of educational 
attainments, to make it possible for them to acquire the neces- 
sary educational preparation with much less difficulty and hard- 
ship than is now the case. This is to be done, in part, by re- 
ducing the working time or adjusting the working hours where 
necessary to permit the employee to pursue further study and, 
in certain cases where existing facilities for study are not avail- 
able or appropriate, to develop new facilities. ' Closely bound 
up with these proposals is the suggestion that in certain cases 
the expenses of tuition of the employee be assumed by the 
service. 

Although these suggestions are based primarily on the 
anticipated benefits to the personnel system through increased 
attractiveness of the service and improved morale, they make 
a strong appeal from still another angle, that of equality, or 
rather equalization, of opportunity. So far as the lack of 



26o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

educational attainments on the part of subordinate personnel 
is due to a lack of opportunity resulting from financial causes, 
anything which the service may do in the way of helping the 
handicapped employee to overcome this disadvantage tends to 
neutralize the existing inequalities of opportunity for educa- 
tion and for economic success. It need hardly be said, how- 
ever, that meritorious as any effort in this direction undoubt- 
edly is, its effect on the social situation generally must be 
negligible; nor is the matter one which the personnel adminis- 
trator is concerned with to the extent of allowing his policy to 
be materially affected thereby. Nevertheless, it is a considera- 
tion not to be disregarded, and where the balance of conven- 
ience seems to be about even, it may well be permitted to 
influence the decision in favor of providing the facilities for 
instruction. 

Once the principle is admitted that the service is under 
obligation to provfde educational facilities through which those 
in lower ranks may equip themselves for promotion, the prob- 
lem becomes the practical one of determining the several points 
in the service where such facilities might be supplied. Against 
the cost of supplying the facilities and the cost of allowing the 
employees any necessary time for study must be balanced the 
returns to the service in better personnel in the lower ranks, 
better service, and morale, and, in addition, the social benefits 
of an equalization of opportunity. 

There is perhaps no theoretical limit at which the provision 
of educational facilities must stop. In the military and naval 
services in peace time, when the amount of productive work 
which must be 'accomplished is relatively slight, an enormous 
proportion of the facilities and of working time is devoted to 
the education of the personnel. In the civil service, however, 
where productive activity is the normal rather than the abnor- 
mal condition, there are obviously very severe limitations on 
the extent of the opportunities for education which can be pro- 
vided with reasonable economy of facilities and time. 

So far as the personnel at Washington is concerned, the 
existing facilities in alrnost every common field are fairly 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 261 

ample. Not a few special fields might be found, however, 
particularly in technical branches, in which virtually no facilities 
are at present available. Here the government could, with 
a minimum of expenses and difficulty, develop facilities of its 
own that would not only be of the highest value for the per- 
sonnel system, but would make a unique contribution to the 
intellectual progress of the nation in all the fields on which 
governmental activities impinge and would be a most bene- 
ficial stimulus to the mental vitality and energy of the technical 
and administrative forces of the government. Possessing in 
its staff of technical workers the makings of a distinguished 
faculty, in its buildings, libraries, and laboratories a varied 
and amply adequate plant, and in the current problems of the 
several services living working material not possessed by any 
university in the land, the government could readily build up 
at Washington, at small expense, an institution as valuable as 
it would be novel, in which the government employee of native 
capacity and ambition could acquire, under the most favorable 
conditions, the specialized instruction thought necessary for 
his advancement to higher responsibility. 

Even with respect to existing facilities for conventional 
courses of instruction at Washington, much could be done un- 
questionably by the government, acting through some central 
personnel authority, and in cooperation with representatives 
of the various services and of the various classes of employees 
affected, greatly to improve these facilities, both in respect to 
quality of instruction and physical plant and in respect to 
preparedness for and responsiveness to the needs of the gov- 
ernment service. Up to the present time, it may be said that 
practically no action has been taken on this head. The gov- 
ernment has permitted a considerable number of educational 
institutions of all grades to exist in the Capital, supported 
chiefly and, in some cases, virtually solely by the government 
personnel, but has taken almost no interest in the quality or 
character of the instruction offered. This is not the place in 
which to attempt any specific suggestions as to what might be 
accomplished by such activity on the part of the government 



262 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

personnel authorities as is here suggested in any given field 
of education, but any one familiar with the conditions exist- 
ing in any particular major branch of instruction at the seat 
of government will find no difficulty in thinking of ways in 
which the current situation might be improved along the lines 
suggested. 

Outside of Washington there are few centers in which 
the number of federal employees would warrant the provision 
by the government itself of special facilities for the education 
of its personnel or for the intervention by the government on 
behalf of its personnel in the educational activities being car- 
ried on by non-governmental institutions. Consequently, ad- 
ditional interest attaches to the suggestion made at another 
point in this volume, that the service at Washington, so far 
as possible, should be recruited by the detail of employees from 
the field establishments. To the extent to which this could be 
done without detriment to the service, the departmental service 
at Washington, in conjunction with educational facilities super- 
vised and encouraged by the government, might be made the 
educational center for the entire federal service. 

The question of working hours as affecting opportunity 
for education is one which does not present itself in an im- 
portant way over most branches of the service. The hours 
of labor in the departments at Washington, and generally at 
the large centers of the country where alone the question really 
presents itself, are sufficiently short to make it possible for the 
ambitious employee to pursue all but the most difficult and 
exacting courses of study. It may truly be said perhaps that 
under existing requirements medicine, dentistry, and civil, 
mechanical, and electrical engineering are the only common 
vocations or professions preparation for which cannot success- 
fully be procured by the employee outside of working hours, 
and perhaps even the engineering courses should be excluded 
from this statement. So far, however, as the question does 
present itself, it seems desirable that a limited concession 
should be made by the service in the case of the deserving em- 
ployee whose working hours do not permit his pursuing an 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 263 

appropriate educational course to the best advantage. Needless 
to say, this is a form of privilege which must be carefully 
safeguarded, both as to extent of allowance of time and as to 
the number of employees to whom it is extended. The same 
may be said with even greater emphasis with respect to any 
plan for the assumption by the government in whole or in 
part of the expenses of tuition of the employee. 

It may be said in passing that although the proposal that 
the government should in any wise concern itself with the 
educational advancement of its employees, or still more, should 
assume a portion of the expenses of such education, either 
by way of remission of working time or by actual contribution 
of tuition cost, may seem novel, yet precisely this policy has 
been followed in the military and naval services for years. In 
those services it has happened frequently that when a need 
arose or was anticipated for a particular type of technical 
service which could have been secured in the open market, the 
policy has been followed of taking ofUcers, or even in some 
cases enlisted men, already in the service and giving them the 
necessary training at an expense far in excess of what would 
have been required to bring in civilian technicians and to in- 
struct them in whatever details of military practice or pro- 
cedure might have been necessary. Many hold that in the 
military and naval services this tradition has been carried to 
a wholly unnecessary extreme, and it is not by any means the 
intention here to argue that any policy which may be adopted 
for the educational advancement of the civilian personnel 
should be governed by the military tradition, but merely to 
point out that the proposition is more novel in appearance than 
in reality. 

In summary, the danger of educational requirements as 
related to selection from within is on the one hand that of con- 
fining recruitment to such low levels as to deprive the service 
of the possibility of securing persons of advanced educational 
equipment; and on the other that of emphasizing educational 
requirements to such a degree that at several successive levels 
recruitment from outside the service must be resorted to to 



264 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

secure persons with the required educational attainments, thus 
closing the door of promise in the face of the lower employees. 
The radical, and the only thoroughly satisfactory, solution of 
the difficulty is to be found, it is believed, not in lowering 
the educational standards fairly demanded by the needs of the 
service, but in making it possible for the employee in the lower 
grades to acquire the educational equipment necessary for his 
advancement to the higher. This is not to say that the gov- 
ernment is to proceed forthwith to provide higher education, 
in working time, for the whole of the subordinate personnel, 
but it means that so far as practicable those of the subordinate 
personnel who show sufficient promise should be provided with 
facilities, and with a certain allowance of time, for securing 
the advanced education needed for the posts in the natural 
line of promotion. 

What is here suggested is an entirely different matter from 
the proposal for training for the public service of which so 
much was formerly, and occasionally still is, heard. That pro- 
posal sees the service as a special field for which no adequate 
preparation is now afforded by existing educational institu- 
tions, or by business experience, and consequently aims to 
create training of this kind. In a subsequent section this view 
is examined and the conclusion reached that there are only a few 
positions in the public service which should properly be filled 
from without the service and for which adequate preparation 
cannot be had through existing institutions or through the 
ordinary course of business experience and that where such 
positions do exist there can be no better method of training 
than that of bringing into the service an intelligent and am- 
bitious young personnel and training it for the special work 
involved through the medium of the work itself. " 

The Area of Selection from Within. — The foregoing dis- 
cussion has been confined to the principle of restricting se- 
lection to those within the service as against resorting to gen- 
eral competition. For the sake of simplicity in discussion, all 
consideration has been omitted of the fact that once the prin- 
ciple of restricting selection to those within the service is 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 265 

decided upon a distinct but cognate problem is encountered in 
its application. Upon the answer which is given to this internal 
question depends in large measure the practicability of applying 
the principle as against general competition. Stated in its 
simplest terms, this question is to what precise area of the 
service shall selection from within normally be confined; and 
if suitable candidates are not forthcoming from so limited an 
area, what additional area or successive areas shall be drawn 
upon in the attempt to fill the position by selection from within 
before open competition is resorted to? To put the case con- 
cretely : a vacancy arises in the position of the chief accounting 
clerk of one of the federal services. The position is one which, 
in the nature of the case, might normally be expected to be 
satisfactorily filled by selection from within the service. In 
the federal service no system of formal competition for pro- 
motion obtains ; and hence the question of the area of the 
service from within which the appointing officer is to be ex- 
pected to make his selection does not present itself as sharply 
as it does in those jurisdictions where formal competition for 
promotion does obtain. Nevertheless, the question is there; 
whether formally or subconsciously, the appointing officer 
manifestly has in mind in the first instance, a particular limited 
area of the service from within which his selection is to be 
made if a suitable candidate can be found at all. This area 
may be merely the particular division of the office concerned 
with the accounting work; it may be the accounting offices of 
the services both in Washington and in the field ; it may possibly 
include all the accounting offices of the department, including 
those of other services, and it may conceivably extend to the 
accounting offices of other departments having accounting prob- 
lems more or less cognate to those encountered in the service 
in question ; finally, it may embrace these several areas in suc- 
cession, the zone being successively widened as one after the 
other is found to yield insufficient material for selection. Whaty. 
in correct theory, should be the original area of selection in 
this case, and what are the successive areas of extension? What 
should be the final extent of the area of selection from within, 



266 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

beyond which the attempt to restrict selection to those within 
the service should be abandoned and general competition re- 
sorted to? Manifestly these are questions which go to the 
root of the whole principle of selection from within. Mani- 
festly, too, they admit of no facile or general answer. 

At first sight it might be thought that the principle of 
convenience, which dictates the restriction of selection to those 
already within the service unless substantial reason exists for 
the belief that better results will be obtained by resort to gen- 
eral competition, would also furnish the answer to the present 
question; that the natural rule would be that selection is to 
be restricted to as small an area of the service adjacent to the 
particular vacancy as is consistent with the probability of find- 
ing within that area a sufficient quantity of available material 
to make satisfactory selection possible, and that just as gen- 
eral competition should be resorted to only when selection from 
within seems unlikely to produce sufficient material of the de- 
sired quality, so the area of selection from within should be 
successively widened only to the degree necessary to insure an 
adequate quantity of material for selection. 

On further examination, however, it will be apparent that 
an additional factor of the first importance seriously qualifies 
the validity of this rule of convenience. This factor is the 
need for equalizing opportunity over the whole service. The 
various units of organization of the government, each of which 
might be designated logically as a distinct area to which selec- 
tion is to be restricted for any vacancy in a particular class 
of work occurring in that unit, vary widely in size, in their 
rate of expansion, in the opportunities for passage to private 
employment, and in various other respects, all affecting the 
frequency and character of the opportunity for promotion 
within their confines. If selection is to be normally restricted 
in each case to those within that unit, the mere accident of 
coriginal entrance into or assignment to one or another branch 
of the service obviously will seriously affect the chances of 
promotion of the employee. The personnel administrator 
must consequently so apply the principle of selection from 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 267 

within as to equalize as nearly as may be the opportunities for 
advancement of all those engaged in a particular class of work. 

Needless to say, there are serious natural limitations to 
what may be done in this direction without detriment to the 
service. Even though the class of work may be the same, 
the employee who has served in the organization unit in which 
the vacancy occurs obviously will have, other things being 
equal, a greater present value in the vacancy than the employee 
coming from another unit of the organization. The question 
of the balance of convenience thus presented between the need 
for .equalization of opportunity for advancement on the one 
hand and the need for present economy in the service on the 
other is a nice one and cannot be answered, of course, in any 
case by the use of a formula. 

When the area for selection from within is extended be- 
yond a particular organization in which the vacancy occurs, 
the possibility arises and becomes greater as the area is ex- 
tended, that a person may be found outside that particular 
unit for whom appointment to the vacancy will represent not 
a promotion, that is, not an advancement from a lower to a 
higher grade of service, but a mere reassignment within the 
grade in which he is already employed. Even such reassign- 
ment, presumably, will represent an advancement for this em- 
ployee, or he would not seek it or be willing to accept it, but 
it will not be promotion from a lower to a higher grade. 
Clearly, viewed from the standpoint of the service as a whole, 
a favorable vacancy in a particular grade has been more fully 
earned, other things being equal, by one who has already seen 
service in that grade in a less favorable assignment than by 
one who is still in a lower grade. 

Nor is the desirability of equalizing the opportunity for 
promotion the sole reason why freedom of movement over 
as large an area of the service as practicable should be en- 
couraged. In the course of business, occasions frequently 
arise when reassignment or redistribution of duties has to be 
made; and situations arise too, where, in the interest of the 
service, it is desirable to change the duties assigned to a given 



268 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

employee. The occasions when such action may be called 
for are too familiar to need more than mention. Thus, a par- 
ticularly capable employee, with large promise of develop- 
ment, may be assigned by accident to duties in which he enjoys 
no opportunity to fit himself for more advanced work, a con- 
dition not only injurious to his own morale and efficiency but 
injurious to the service generally, since it represents a waste 
of potential ability, never too plentiful, which the service 
should conserve. Again, an estrangement may arise between 
an employee and a superior officer which impairs the effi- 
ciency of both, and which is yet the result either of accident 
or a temperamental difficulty not fundamental and not likely 
to be present with others. Finally, a situation not infrequently 
arises in which it is thought that a particular employee, be- 
cause of some special aptitude or interest, is more Jikely to 
produce results in a given specific set of duties than the em- 
ployee now performing those duties, though the latter may 
be, in general, a wholly satisfactory employee. 

Changes in assignments, in short although frequently made 
at the instance of the individual employee and in part for his 
benefit, at the same time may be demanded for the best inter- 
ests of th^ service. It is, consequently, in the highest degree 
desirable, in any personnel system, that as great a freedom in 
reassignment should exist as is consistent with other require- 
ments of personnel administration. 

The extension, rather than the restriction of the area of 
selection from within, commends itself from still another point 
of view — that of preventing stagnation in the service by mak- 
ing more frequent and more free the movement of individuals 
from one branch of the service to another. Since persons 
transferred to areas of the service more or less remote from 
their previous assignments have to spend some time in fa- 
miliarizing themselves with their new work, there is, of course, 
a limit beyond which the free movement of personnel and fre- 
quent changes in the personnel of the organization will be 
found hurtful to the efficiency of the service and the economy 
of operation: but it is not believed that under ordinary con- 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 269 

ditions in the federal service there will be much danger of 
this, however widely the area of selection may be extended. 
The need for definite measures to prevent stagnation of the 
service is so great as to outweigh any slight danger of in- 
creased cost of service which may inhere in the extension of 
the area of selection. 

The problem of the proper limits of the area of selection 
presents itself, of course, with great variations in difficulty 
and importance. Some classes of work are located chiefly, if 
not exclusively, in a single branch of the governmental service, 
and here the problem is a relatively simple one. Such a case 
is that of the geologists employed by the Geological Survey. 
Virtually no other branch of the government service employs 
geologists except occasionally. The question of the area to 
which selection for any given vacancy should be restricted in 
this case is thus simply a question of whether it should be re- 
stricted to one or more of the administrative divisions of the 
Survey or should be extended to cover all its geologists. Since 
its administrative divisions are not entirely stable and the op- 
erating relations between them are intimate, and the geological 
work required in them is not radically different, the decision 
here naturally would be that the whole service should be con- 
sidered as a unit for the purpose of selection from within, ex- 
cept perhaps for a small proportion of highly specialized 
posts. 

At the other extreme are classes of work which occur in 
virtually every branch of the service. That of financial ac- 
counting or of maintaining personnel records and administer- 
ing personnel matters readily occur as examples of this class. 
Here a variety of questions present themselves. Selection 
may be restricted to those engaged in this work in the par- 
ticular service in the Washington office, or may be extended 
to include also those in the field establishments of the service 
engaged in that work. Again it may be extended to em- 
brace all services of the same executive department, whether 
to those employed in the central offices at Washington or in 
the field establishments. Finally, it may be extended to in- 



270 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

elude all, in whatever department, who are employed in a given 
class of work in Washington or perhaps even through the 
services the country over. In each case the decision will have 
to be made by balancing the advantage of enlarging the num- 
ber from among whom selection may be made and of opening 
to those in the least favored services an opportunity for ad- 
vancement which might otherwise be lacking, against the dis- 
advantage involved in filling the vacancy by one not familiar 
with the detail of the special problems or conditions of the 
particular service or branch in which the vacancy exists. , 

So far as the latter disadvantage exists, it may be noted, 
it is not likely to be any more serious in many cases when the 
person appointed comes from a wholly different department 
than when he comes from another service of the same de- 
partment. In many instances the fields of work, and conse- 
quently the detailed problems of operation, of two services of 
the same executive department bear no more relation to each 
other than do those of totally distinct departments. The- 
oretically, of course, this should not be so, but that it is so no 
one familiar with the present distribution of functions among 
the executive departments will question for a moment. While, 
therefore, in theory it might appear that a more complete case 
ought to be made out for extending the area of selection to an- 
other department than for extending it merely to other serv- 
ices of the same department, the facts of the present situation 
lend little support to this view. 

From the various considerations just reviewed, it must be 
apparent that no precise formula can be developed by which 
the area of selection within the service desirable in any par- 
ticular case may be determined. All that can be offered in a 
discussion like the present one is that the problem is mani- 
festly one requiring close and continuous study ; that it cannot 
be met by arbitrary regulations designed to cover all cases; 
and that the central personnel authority should be ever in search 
of opportunities to extend the area of selection where desirable. 

None of these requirements is satisfied by the situation now 
obtaining in the federal service. The problem of the proper 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 271 

definition of the area of selection from within for the several 
classes of service has never been studied in any comprehensive 
way. The current practice on this head is almost wholly the 
result of independent and uncoordinated departmental action. 
Attitude of Civil Service Commission. — So far as the Civil 
Service Commission is concerned, its action to date has not 
only been not constructive; it has been decidedly restrictive. 
At the instance of the Commission, the President has promul- 
gated rules, the details of which will be reviewed shortly, 
which materially limit the power of the appointing officer to 
enlarge to the fullest extent which he may deem necessary the 
area of selection from within. Not only is it believed that the 
restrictive regulations thus developed at the instance of the 
Commission have in many cases been unnecessary, but also 
that the theory which has been responsible for the Commis- 
sion's recommendations under this head is an incorrect one. In 
its current publication dealing with this subject,^ the Com- 
mission repeats the statement first made by it some fifteen years 
ago as follows : 

No specific authority for transfers is found in the civil 
service act, and they are allowed only as necessary exceptions 
to open competition. The rules are intended to impose re- 
trictions which will confine transfers within the fundamental 
provisions of the act; that is, that they shall be warranted by 
the conditions of good administration and have regard to the 
rights of competitors and employees without making a privi- 
leged class of the latter. 

To agree with the reasoning of the Commission in this 
matter is indeed difficult. In view of the circumstances under 
which the civil service act was passed and in view of the fact 
that the act itself specifically recognizes that "other things" 
may be included in the rules to be promulgated by the Presi- 
dent, there seems to be little reason for taking the position 
that the act should be given any force in the direction of re- 
stricting the possibilities of transfer beyond what would be 

* Information concerning transfers, United States Civil Service Com- 
mission, Form 30b, December, 1917. 



272 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

indicated by the needs of sound personnel administration if 
the act did not exist. Again, the principle of having "regard 
to the rights of competitors and employees without making 
a privileged class of the latter" finds no warrant in the civil 
service act itself. The act, indeed, does provide that all posi- 
tions, ''as nearly as the conditions of good administration will 
warrant/' shall be filled by open competitive examination ; but 
the act says nothing which negatives the possibility that it may 
be very much in the interests of good administration to make 
"a privileged class" of employees in certain cases, nor does the 
act anywhere define or indeed even mention the "rights of com- 
petitors." The purpose of the act was not to extend any 
"rights" to competitors for entrance to the service but to pro- 
vide a method of filling vacancies from without the service 
when it became necessary to fill vacancies in that way. The 
act cannot thus be fairly regarded as touching in any way on 
the question of the extent to which it might be desirable to 
fill vacancies from within, rather than from without, the 
service. 

Equally mistaken seems to be the general statement, made 
by the Commission in explanation of a restriction on freedom 
of transfer effected by amendment to the rules made in 1904, 
that "injustice is done when a person is brought into a depart- 
ment over the heads of those deserving promotion." ^ Al- 
though this statement had particular reference to the prohibi- 
tion of transfers to a position above the lowest grade in any 
class except upon special certificate, it may be taken fairly as 
representing a general attitude on the part of the Commission 
on the question of the proper extent of the area of selection 
from within. 

The difficulty with this view is that it fails to look^at the 
service as a whole. It adopts the provincial outlook of the 
mediocre employee who can see no further than the particular 
branch of the service in which he happens to be at the time. 
To the capable and ambitious employee, however, it seems no 

* Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1904), p. IS. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 273 

hardship that one is brought from another branch of the serv- 
ice over his head, provided, of course, his selection for that 
purpose has been fairly and honestly made, because he sees in 
this transfer a corresponding opportunity for himself to seize 
an opportunity in another branch of the service when it arises. 

The principle here contended for in effect converts the 
whole federal service into a single system within which free 
movement obtains, while the principle contended for by the 
Civil Service Commission in the statements quoted looks to 
the maintenance of the system as an aggregate of closed cir- 
cles with a transfer from one to the other possible only in 
the rarest instances. The net effect of the two theories would 
not be widely divergent were all the circles of equal dimen- 
sions, and opportunity for promotion within each of them 
equally frequent and attractive. Since such is, however, in no 
degree the case, the insistence of the right of each small group 
of employees to be treated as a service apart from all other 
groups in the service cannot but result in the grossest inequality 
of opportunity for promotion and advancement in the several 
branches of the service and the deterioration in the caliber of 
the personnel in those branches of the service in which oppor- 
tunity is slight. The theory here contended for opens up to 
every branch of the service, within the natural limitations 
fixed by the diversity of work, the material available anywhere 
in the service. 

At still another point the principle adopted by the Civil 
Service Commission is open to criticism. In concentrating at- 
tention on the injustice done to those "deserving of promo- 
tion" by bringing in one from another branch of the service 
over their heads, no account is taken of the fact that that one 
may be equally or more "deserving" at the hands of the serv- 
ice. The fact of the matter is that the statement of the Com- 
mission really implies that the selection of the person from 
another branch of the service in preference to those within that 
branch Is not made solely with an eye to the good of the service 
but is In whole or In part dictated by the purely selfish inter- 
ests of the Individual involved. It cannot be questioned that 



274 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

under current conditions prevailing in the federal service many 
of the transfers from one branch of the service to another have 
been open to this objection. The remedy, however, is not to 
oppose obstacles to the free movement of the personnel from 
one branch to another but to establish such methods of selec- 
tion of persons to be transferred from one branch to another 
as will insure that the transfer, in every case, is demanded by 
the interests of the service. 

The attitude taken by the Commission in this matter is all 
the more remarkable in view of the fact that it has never of- 
fered the slightest objection to the filling of a post by open 
competition which could satisfactorily be filled by promotion 
from within the service. Surely if injustice is done to those 
in a particular branch of the service by bringing in over their 
heads one from another branch of the service, the injustice 
must be all the greater when one is brought in over the heads 
from wholly outside the service. 

Attitude of Congress. — The action which Congress has 
taken on this subject is also wholly innocent of any construc- 
tive intent. The interest of Congress in this matter has arisen 
at various times from the competition between different serv- 
ices and departments for particular classes of employees, re- 
sulting in one service or department outbidding the other. 
Obviously this condition could not arise were there enforced 
throughout the departments and services a uniform standard 
classification of duties and appropriate compensation rates ap- 
pertaining thereto. In the absence of such standards, however, 
departments naturally have been able to offer very widely vary- 
ing figures for the same type of service. In the attempt to 
prevent this competition of departments with one another, Con- 
gress has enacted several restrictive statutes of wide applica- 
tion. The particular terms of these statutes and their inap- 
propriateness for meeting the situation in question are dis- 
cussed in the subsequent paragraphs in connection with the 
several types of restrictions. Here it is desired merely to 
point out that the action of Congress on this point has been 
brought about only by a wrong condition for which Congress 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 275 

alone is responsible. Had Congress provided a means whereby 
uniform rates might be fixed for the same class of work 
throughout all branches of the service and enforced an impar- 
tial application of those rates, it would be impossible for any 
employee to obtain a higher rate simply by moving from one 
organization unit of the service to another, while the work 
which he was performing remained the same. Were the work 
to be really higher in grade, there should be no proper ob- 
jection, of course, to the change. It should be welcomed, in 
fact. 

Disadvantages of Existing Restrictions upon Transfers. 
— The restrictions which are in force upon transfer from one 
department to another reveal themselves as especially perni- 
cious when a new service or agency is established. Little is 
to be looked for in the way of a multiplication of opportuni- 
ties within a given service by reason of its own rapid expan- 
sion. Not infrequently, however, the government enters an 
entirely new field of activity, and constructs a large new or- 
ganization therefor.. In such a case, opportunity is offered 
to build the personnel of the new service by selection from 
the ranks of the existing organization. In view of the nat- 
ural limitations on the opportunity for advancement in the 
federal service, it would seem clear that such an occasion for 
increasing those opportunities should be welcomed and should 
be availed of to the fullest possible extent. From the stand- 
point of the new organization, the desirability of obtaining 
an administrative personnel familiar with government methods 
is equally clear. But the statutory restrictions now in force 
make no distinction whatever between such a case as this 
one and that of transfer to a well established branch of the 
service. 

These restrictions apply only where the position to which 
transfer is sought is in the competitive class. Where the posi- 
tion is excepted from examination, whether by statute or by 
the rules, the appointing officer is free to fill it by the selection 
of whomever he wishes, so that manifestly no special restric- 
tion could logically exist which would in any way hinder him 



276 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

from filling it by the selection of one already in the service.^ 
The requirements now in force, whether derived from 
statute or civil service rule, virtually without exception, are 
applicable only to transfers from one department or inde- 
pendent establishment to another. In theory, there is no rea- 
son why, even were the departmental organization of the gov- 
ernment wholly correct and consistent, a transfer from one 
department to another should be made any more difficult than 
one from one branch of a department to another. In either 
case, the transfer should be made, under proper practice, only 
where the employee transferred meets the requirements of the 
position to which he is transferred more completely than does 
any employee more nearly adjacent to the organization unit 
in which the vacancy occurs, or where the transfer represents 
to him an advancement in compensation, responsibility, or op- 
portunity which he has earned more fully than such more ad- 
jacent employee. If either or both these factors are present, 
it would seem immaterial whether the transfer involves a 
journey from one department to another or merely from one 
part of a department to another.^ 

Especially would this view seem to apply considering the 

^ If the position to which transfer is sought be in the competitive 
class and the position from which the transfer is proposed be an ex- 
cepted one, the person proposed to be transferred must pass an examina- 
tion. This requirement is discussed in the following section. 

* The following from the report of the Reclassification Commission 
(Part I, p. 12) seems to endorse this view: "We are asking the Congress 
to remove the barriers which have been set up between the various depart- 
ments and which have made it extremely difficult for an employee in one 
department to secure a more lucrative place in another department. 
We believe the service should be regarded as an entity and that pro- 
motions should go to the best qualified without regard to departmental 
lines." 

It is not entirely clear, however, how this is to be reconciled with 
the position taken at a subsequent point in the report (p. 127) that "a 
clear distinction should be made between transfer between departments 
and assignment to specific positions within the same department. The 
Civil Service Commission should have no authority over assignments, 
provided they are in accordance with the classification, the placing of 
individuals in specific positions within the same class coming entirely 
within the jurisdiction of the administrative officers in charge of the 
work." If it be assumed that the word department is here used in the 
sense of organization unit, the inconsistency disappears, as the sentence 
would then mean merely that the Commission would not exercise su- 
pervision over the division of labor among the employees of a class in 
any organization unit. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 277 

existing departmental organization of the federal government. 
The present distribution of functions and services among the 
departments represents not the outworking of a comprehensive 
and consistent plan, but a more or less haphazard and acci- 
dental growth, characterized by many features wholly illogical, 
some very ill-considered, and not a few manifestly absurd. 
In a number of instances, the gap which separates a given 
service from another in the same department is far wider than 
that which separates it from a given service in another depart- 
ment. In fact, it is notorious that nearly all the proposals 
which from time to time have been put forward for the con- 
solidation of functions in the federal government have con- 
templated the consolidation of two or more services not in the 
same department but in different departments. Obviously, 
this lack of logic in the departmental organization of the gov- 
ernment renders all the more improper and vexatious the ar- 
bitrary restrictions which are interposed to hinder free move- 
ment from one department to another. 

The basic motive for these restrictions has been to check 
the employees in their attempts to obtain higher salaries by se- 
curing transfers from departments paying lower salaries to 
those paying higher salaries for the same class of work. The 
situation which led to their enactment was thus summarized in 
the report of the Quartermaster General for the year ended 
June 30, 1904 : ^ 

Under the provisions of the civil .service rules relating to 
transfers, during the past year other Departments have ap- 
plied for and obtained the transfer from this Office of a num- 
ber of clerks — with hardly an exception . . . young men who, 
in addition to being competent clerks, are skilled stenogra- 
phers and typewriters, and who at the time of their respective 
transfers had been in the service just long enough to familiar- 
ize themselves with departmental methods. However valuable 
the system of transfers may be to the Departments drafting 
this class of employees, it is demoralizing to the Department 
from which the clerks are drafted. It is true that the latter 

* Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1904), p. IS. 



278 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Department can, under the rules, arbitrarily refuse to grant 
the requested transfer, but in every case the clerk whose trans- 
fer is asked is offered an increase in salary . . . and in the 
majority of cases more rapid promotion than can be expected 
in the office in which he is serving. When these facts are 
placed before the head of a Department, he approves the trans- 
fer rather than take the position of standing in the way of the 
material advancement of the clerk. 

The difficulty with this proposition is that the condition 
out of which the undue frequency of transfer arose, that is, 
the lack of uniformity in the salaries paid for the same kind 
of work in the several departments, was an improper one and 
one capable of being remedied. The undue frequency of trans- 
fers was merely a symptom of this disease and not a disease 
itself. The remedy should have been sought in a standardiza- 
tion of salary rates for similar classes of work throughout the 
departments and not in an arbitrary restriction upon the free- 
dom of transfer in cases where such transfer might be desired 
not merely by the employee for personal reasons but by the 
administration officers of both departments concerned for rea- 
sons solely connected with the good of the service. 

The most important restriction now in force limiting trans- 
fer from one department to another is that requiring that an 
employee "must have served for a term of three years in an 
executive department or independent establishment at Wash- 
ington before transfer to another such department or estab- 
lishment." This rule is merely a paraphrase of a statute 
originally enacted in 1906 ^ and extended in its scope in 
1917.2 

The drastic character of this provision needs no comment. 

*Act of June 22, 1906, 34 Stat. 449. 

' Act of October 6, 1917, 40 Stat. 383. The original act of 1906 ap- 
plied only to transfers from one executive department to another execu- 
tive department. The act of 1917 extended the restriction to transfers 
from executive departments to independent establishments and vice versa 
and to transfers of employees from one independent establishment to an- 
other. Long before the statutory extension of 1917, the rules (under 
an amendment ordered September 23, 1907) had extended the three-year 
requirement to transfers between, to, or from independent establishments; 
but under those rules the requirement might be waived by the Commis- 
sion, while the statute made it mandatory. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 279 

Taken in conjunction with the act of 1917, shortly to be men- 
tioned, which prohibits the appointment of persons under lump 
sum appropriations in any department at a higher rate of com- 
pensation than was received by them in any other department 
preceding their employment by the second department, it con- 
stitutes a more drastic restriction upon inter-departmental 
transfers than is to be found in any other public personnel sys- 
tem that has come to notice and one which, needless to say, 
is wholly foreign to the practice of private personnel systems. 
It is consequently all the more difficult to understand why 
the Commission felt called upon, in 1907, to extend this three- 
year requirement even further than required by the statute. 
The Attorney General ruled, shortly after the enactment of 
this statute, that it did not apply to transfers to or from the 
field services of the several departments, on the ground that 
the term "departments" as used in the act was intended to 
apply only to the departments at Washington.^ The President 
presumably acting on the recommendation of the Commission, 
shortly thereafter amended the rules to apply the same restric- 
tion to inter-departmental transfers to or from field services, 
with the qualification that the requirement may be waived 
upon a statement of reasons satisfying the Commission that 
a transfer is necessary in the interest of the service.^ In- 
formation is not available as to the frequency with which 
occasions arise for the application of this part of the rule, 
or as to the attitude which the Commission has taken towards 
applications for the waiving of the requirement. Whatever 
may be the facts on this head, however, it is believed that the 
rule itself is uncalled for and unsound in principle, and should 
be abrogated without delay; and that the Commission at the 
same time should urge upon Congress the repeal of the statutes 
of 1906 and 1917. 

* Opinion of the Attorney General, May 17, 1907, 26 Op., 254. 

^Amendment of September 23, 1907, to Rule X, 8 (a). In point of 
fact the amendment, in its terms, requires the consent of the Commission 
to the waiving of the three-year requirement not merely in the case of 
inter-departmental transfers to or from field services, but even in all 
inter-departmental transfers. If this was the intent of the rule, how- 
ever, it has never been carried out. 



28o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Official opinion, based on experience, accords with theory 
in recommending this course. In the year following the en- 
actment of the three-year law the following comment was made 
by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: 

The law prohibiting transfers from one Executive Depart- 
ment to another until three years' service has not worked an 
improvement. The bright young man coming into the service 
at a small salary is largely influenced in his acceptance of the 
place by the hope of reasonably early promotion. In many 
offices he finds that there is but little opportunity. He cannot 
afford to wait three years for a transfer to some office where 
the chances are better, and he either leaves the service at the 
beginning of his usefulness or drifts into hopeless mediocrity. 
While it is probably true that some offices and Departments 
have suffered because of frequent transfers, it is believed that 
the proper remedy is a uniform reclassification of the service, 
as recently recommended by the Committee on Department 
Methods, and that any direct prohibition against transfers be- 
yond the period of six months originally fixed by the civil 
service rules, while affording apparent relief, does not remove 
the cause and cannot be regarded as the correct solution of 
the difficulty. The nucleus of this Department was formed 
by transfers from other branches of the service, and it would 
probably have been a severe drawback had the transfer limi- 
tation then been in effect. Were all the Departments classi- 
fied on a uniform basis, much, if not*all, of the instability of 
the force in certain Departments and offices would disappear.* 

Again in 1910, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor ex- 
pressed his opinion of the three-year rule as highly undesir- 
able from the standpoint of personnel administration. The 
statement made by him at that time, and presumably prepared 
for him by an official in his Department thoroughly conversant 
with conditions in the Federal Service, so admirably sums up 
the considerations bearing on this question as to warrant re- 
production in full. 

There are many instances in which it is found to be im- 
practicable to make selections for appointment from the civil 

^Twenty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1907), p. 176. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 281 

service registers. Prior to June 22, 1906, a department could 
select, after six months' service, an employee in another de- 
partment or branch of the service having qualifications to fit 
the needs of a particular position, thus leaving a vacancy which 
very often could be filled advantageously from the eligible list, 
but by legislation enacted on that date such a transfer is pro- 
hibited if both positions are in Washington, D. C, unless the 
employee proposed for transfer has served at least three years 
in the department from which transfer is desired. This ap- 
plies also to transfers to and from positions outside of the 
District of Columbia, unless the Civil Service Commission 
deems the action necessary in the interest of the service and 
waives the three-year requirement. That transfers, especially 
to positions requiring executive ability or scientific and tech- 
nical training, are occasionally desirable and even necessary 
to the best interests of the Government cannot be questioned. 
The transfer of an employee from a position not requiring 
the full use of his powers to one requiring a higher order of 
efficiency also is clearly not only in the interest of the service, 
but advantageous to the employee himself. It enables a de- 
partment to fill properly a position which requires a special 
order of ability or imposes a high degree of responsibility 
by the appointment of a person whom experience has shown to 
possess just the qualifications of mind and temperament de- 
sired, as well as to retain in the service a valuable employee 
who might otherwise become dissatisfied with his environ- 
ments and leave the service, but who, if given the proper en- 
couragement and opportunity, might rise step by step into the 
higher positions. A less direct, but by no means unimpor- 
tant, advantage of the privilege of transfer is that it offers 
inducements to ambitious young men who would enter the 
service if they felt assured of a fair chance for advancement. 
The civil service act contains no specific authority for trans- 
fers. Presumably for this reason the Civil Service Commis- 
sion considers the filling of a position by transfer such a de- 
parture from the general method of appointment prescribed 
by law as can only be justified when the conditions of good 
administration will be more fully met than by original ap- 
pointment. Apparently also the commission recognized the 
advantages of a certain amount of elasticity in the transfer 
rules, for it stated, shortly before the passage of the law es- 
tablishing the three-year limit, that it believed that transfers 
had been restricted to the fullest extent compatible with the 
best interests of the service. 



282 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Experience shows that inter-departmental transfers are per- 
haps unnecessarily hampered and restricted at the present time 
by the provision of law referred to. While its object was, 
unquestionably, to restrict the number of transfers made for 
personal and other reasons not connected with the best inter- 
ests of the service, and to prevent persons from accepting 
appointments to undesirable positions with a view to securing 
early transfer through improper influence, in actual practice 
it appears to be merely an arbitrary rule for which no suffi- 
cient reason can be found, and an obstacle in the way of busi- 
nesslike methods. It is not apparent why objectionable trans- 
fers could not be restricted by means less detrimental to the 
general service; why, if a time limit is deemed absolutely 
necessary, it should be placed at three years rather than at six 
months or one year; or why the Civil Service Commission 
should not be authorized to waive the requirement, even in 
transfers between departments in Washington, when the head 
of a department concludes and certifies that such action is re- 
quired in the interest of the service. In pleasing contrast to 
inter-departmental transfers, and as really convincing illustra- 
tions of their usefulness with proper cooperation between the 
departments and fewer arbitrary restrictions, are the transfers 
between the various bureaus of this department. During the 
past fiscal year there were 90 transfers of this kind. Many 
of these were made upon the application of the employee con- 
cerned; practically all were agreeable to the persons trans- 
ferred; and all (even those made as the result of the efficiency 
records taken last year) had in view the ultimate good of the 
service.^ 

There is not found in any subsequent pronouncement of 
the Civil Service Commission or of the departments any dis- 
cussion of ^,he wisdom of the three-year transfer rule, but it 
it is hardly to be doubted that a canvass of the officers of the 
several departments and bureaus which have to do with per- 
sonnel matters would disclose a fairly unanimous agreement 
among them that the present requirement is distinctly hurtful 
to the service.^ 

* Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1910), p. 139. 

" In 1912 the President's Commission on Economy and Ffficiency 
addressed to all the principal administrative officers in Washington a 
questionnaire calling for comment on various statutory provisions affect- 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 283 

Unduly restrictive as the three-year requirement is, it 
proved itself wholly ineffective, in the complete absence of cen- 
tral provision for salary fixation and enforcement, to check 
the wholesale inter-departmental competition for experienced 
employees, and even for inexperienced, which developed 
promptly upon the declaration of war. Congress again met 
the situation, not with any fundamental plan for the central 
control and equalization of compensation rates, but with a 
wholly negative, restrictive enactment. At a time when it was 
of vital import to the government that every experienced em- 
ployee should be placed in that branch of the hastily improvised 
and hourly expanding war organization for which he was best 
fitted. Congress prohibited the transfer of any employee from 
one department to another at an increased rate of compensa- 
tion (or the employment at a higher rate of any person who 
had within the year been employed in another department, a 
provision obviously designed to prevent evasion through res- 
ignation and reappointment) ; and forbade any increase of the 
compensation of any employee transferred within a year after 
the transfer.^ The Comptroller of the Treasury fortunately 
decided that the act was limited to positions in the depart- 
ments and independent establishments at Washington.^ 
Adopted purely as an emergency measure, and embodied in 
an appropriation act, this ill-advised measure still remains on 
the statute books, chiefly because Congress is too much occu- 
pied with other matters to repeal it.^ 

In connection with this legislation, mention should be made 
of the act of 1912 prohibiting the increasing of an employee's 

ing personnel. The replies (to be found in "A Budget for the Fiscal 
Year_i9i4," one of the Commission's Reports, pp. 207-335) in most cases 
mention the three-year statutory restriction on transfers and virtually 
unanimously condemn it. 

'Act of October 6, 1917, 40 Stat. 384. It should be noted that the 
act in terms applies only to salaries paid out of lump sum appropria- 
tions; but this represents far the larger, and an ever increasing, pro- 
portion of positions. 

^Decision of October 12, 1917, 24 Dec. Compt. 207. 

'The case against the statute is conclusively and fully set forth in a 
report of the House Committee on Reform in the Civil Service, made 
August 8, 1918, recommending its repeal. Sixty-sixth Congress, ist Ses- 
sion, House Report No. 272. See also Congressional Record April i, 
1920, p. 5492. 



284 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

salary by shifting him from a statutory position to one paid 
out of a lump sum appropriation,^ This act was not directed 
primarily against inter-departmental transfers but rather 
against abuses of the lump appropriations to make unwar- 
ranted increases of salary within the departments. It applies, 
however, as against inter-departmental transfers as well. 

Attitude of Reclassification Commission. — Discussing the 
several restrictions on inter-departmental transfers in relation 
to compensation rates just reviewed, the Reclassification Com- 
mission well says : 

Such restrictions, however good their intent, render trans- 
fers exceedingly difficult and tend to make the entire service 
immobile. During the last few years in particular they have 
worked a real hardship by preventing the more experienced 
and efficient employees from being transferred to other or- 
ganizations where salaries were higher or opportunities for 
advancement better, Whatever justification may have existed 
for restrictions of this sort in the past will be done away with 
in the future under the new classification. Providing similar 
pay for the performance of similar duties throughout the 
service will do away with the temptation that now exists for 
one department to bid against another, and will tend to limit 
the desire of the employees to be transferred to cases where 
there is some real reason for a change aside from the prospect 
of salary increase. 

Under these conditions the Commission sees no danger in 
the removal of the present restrictions on transfers. On the 
contrary, it believed that such action would prove beneficial by 
increasing the mobility of the service and making possible the 
placing of employees where they can serve to the best ad- 
vantage. General supervision over inter-departmental trans- 
fers would naturally be exercised by the Civil Service Com- 
mission under such rules and regulations as that Comrnission 
might prescribe. With the safeguards against abuse provided 
by the new classification and by the activities of the Civil 
Service Commission's representatives, it is believed that these 
rules might well provide that the initiative in a transfer could 
be taken by the employee concerned as well as by the head of 
the department to which the transfer is to be made. The ap- 

^Act of August 26, 1912, 37 Stat. 626, as amended by act of March 4, 
1913, 37 Stat. 790. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 285 

proval of the latter would, of course, be a prerequisite in all 
cases to favorable action by the Civil Service Commission ; and 
the disapproval of the head of the department from which 
transfer is to be made should serve as a temporary bar to 
transfer, subject to appeal and final decision by the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission.^ 

One further restriction on inter-departmental transfers, of 
a comparatively minor character, should be mentioned — that 
providing that "no transfer shall be made to a competitive 
position above the lowest class in any grade unless the ap- 
pointing officer shall certify that the position cannot be ade- 
quately filled by promotion." (Rule X, Section i.) ^ This 
rule was promulgated by an amendment of 1904. The reason 
for this amendment as stated by the Commission was that "in- 
justice is done when a person is brought into a department 
over the heads of those deserving promotion." ^ 

This view, as already pointed out, does not take into ac- 
count the fact that while those in the department may indeed 
be "deserving of promotion," there may often be in another 
department one equally or more "deserving," whose transfer, 
moreover, is demanded by the needs of the service. Occasions 
may arise in which a position can satisfactorily be filled by pro- 
motion but it is nevertheless desirable to fill it by the transfer 
of a person who is either specially suitable or for whom pro- 
vision must in fairness be made because of conditions ex- 
isting in the branch from which he is transferred. The rule 
should require merely that the Commission should be satis- 
fied in each instance that the interests of the service will be 
subserved by filling the position by transfer rather than by 
promotion. Owing, however, to the absence of clearly de- 
fined grades over the major part of the service, and the fact 
that merely the certificate of the appointing officer, but no 

* Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 126. 

' The rule further provides that "The Commission may, with the 
approval of the head of any department, adopt regulations applicable 
to the service in or under such department declaring what class shall be 
regarded as the lowest in any grade." 

^ Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1904), p. IS. 



286 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

proof before the Commission, is required to effect the waiving 
of this rule, it is not of any serious consequence as a restric- 
tion upon transfer. 

The Reclassification Commission has taken a view on this 
point diametrically opposed to that taken by the Civil Service 
Commission. It has recommended that every vacancy in a 
higher grade be filled by transfer if possible ; and that promo- 
tion be made only when there is no employee available for 
transfer.^ While this proposal is doubtless in full accord with 
the theory of the extension of the area of selection from within 
urged in the foregoing pages, it is believed to go beyond the 
limits of practicability. To require an examination to be 
made in each case of the whole service for employees pos- 
sibly available for transfer would seem an unnecessary labor. 
If the normal areas of selection from within are properly 
defined, it will be sufficient if special occasions calling for. 
selection from without that area are brought to the attention 
of the appointing officer on the initiative of the Civil Service 
Commission in each individual case. 

Absence of Means for Locating Eligibles for Transfer. — 
Another factor limiting the area of the service from which 
selection is made, is the absence of any adequate machinery for 
bringing before the appointment officer information regarding 
the material available in the area outside his personal cog- 
nizance. At the present time there exists no special machinery 
or procedure in the federal service for bringing the job and 
the man together in such a case. If news of the vacancy hap- 
pens to come to the attention of a qualified person in the 
service, he may make application for a transfer, which will 
be granted on his securing the consent of the heads of both 
departments involved; but no official means or procedure ex- 
ists for bringing the job to his attention, or for raising the 
question of transfer without his being compelled to take the 
initiative. No attempt is made, in advance of ordering an 
open competitive examination, to locate a possibly suitable per- 
son already in the service and bring about his transfer. The 

^Report of Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 24, 138. 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 287 

result is that every year large numbers of technical or quasi- 
technical positions are filled by appointment of persons from 
without the service which could as satisfactorily be filled from 
within the service, not only with less expense and delay but, far 
more important, with a resulting stimulation of ambition and 
enlargement of opportunity for the whole personnel — of first 
importance in improving morale and in improving also the 
caliber of the personnel that is attracted to and retained in the 
service. 

This condition, which applies principally to the higher cler- 
ical, ofiice manager, type of position, and to statistical and 
routine scientific work, could be readily and radically improved 
were the Civil Service Commission to develop such records as 
would enable it, when a vacancy arose in any service which 
could not to advantage be filled by promotion from within that 
service, to recommend for transfer to the vacancy one or more 
persons already in the service, to whom appointment to the 
vacancy would represent an advance in salary or responsibility. 

A special phase of the work of the central personnel agency 
in the control of transfers is the shifting of subordinate per- 
sonnel from department to department to meet the varying 
seasonal needs of the several departments. Exact data as to 
the possibilities of this feature of the federal service are not 
available, but it is more than likely that there are substantial 
possibilities for good. 

Advantages of Recruiting Personnel at Washington from 
the Field Sendee. — A practice which does not appear to 
be in effect in any of the Government establishments to which 
it would be applicable, but which would seem to offer many 
advantages, would be that of recruiting the personnel at Wash- 
ington, so far as practicable, not from outside the service, but 
from the personnel of the field establishments. Such a prac- 
tice, of course, would be most readily applicable to those serv- 
ices which have comparatively large field establishments and 
comparatively small forces at Washington, but if applied on 
a departmental basis, or, as would be practicable, even on an 
inter-departmental basis, it could be made applicable in greater 



288 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

or less degree to the recruitment of possibly a major part of 
the personnel at Washington. 

The advantages of such a system lie in several directions. 
In the first place, especially if appointments to Washington 
were regarded rather in the nature of a detail for a term than 
in the nature of a permanent appointment, it would result in 
a continuous interchange of personnel between the field es- 
tablishments and the departmental offices in Washington. An 
interchange of this kind is well recognized in large commercial 
and industrial organizations as in the highest degree beneficial. 
Where no such interchange of personnel obtains, it is almost 
invariably the case that the central office personnel fails prop- 
erly to appreciate the conditions and the difficulties under 
which the field personnel works and that, conversely, the field 
personnel tends to be impatient of the requirements laid down 
by the central office with respect to the accounting, reporting, 
and related matters, the importance of which, for the pur- 
pose of central control is not clearly apparent to those in the 
field. Hence it is that prompt and willing cooperation be- 
tween field and central establishments, one of the prime requi- 
sites of effective administration, is greatly facilitated by the 
practice of interchange of personnel here suggested. 

Another advantage to which passing reference has been 
made already arises from the fact that the present system of 
selecting the personnel for the departmental service at Wash- 
ington from the whole area of the country, as it necessarily 
does, frequently requires the appointing officer to select an 
eligible who resides at a considerable distance from Washing- 
ton only to find long before the expiration of the probationary 
period that the appointee is unsuited for the work. The ob- 
vious difficulty in dismissing an employee under these condi- 
tions, at or before the end of the probationary period, not in- 
frequently results in the retention of the incompetent or un- 
suitable employee beyond that period, which is equivalent to 
indefinite retention in the service. Under the system proposed, 
on the other hand, the appointing officer in Washington would 
not be compelled to select more or less blindly but would ob- 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 289 

tain his personnel by selection from among the tried and tested 
employees of the field service who have been recommended by 
local superiors, familiar both with the work required at Wash- 
ington and with the qualifications of the individual employee. 
Moreover, in such a case there would be no occasion for the 
drastic dismissal of the employee who has been brought to 
Washington. If the employee, when actually tested out, were 
found unsuitable, the situation could be cured merely by a re- 
detail as soon as convenient to the local service. 

Closely related to this is the possibility that the application 
of this method would furnish a painless solution of the vexed 
problem of apportionment. Since the personnel of many of 
the field services is distributed over the country in approxi- 
mate proportion to the population, the method suggested would 
furnish for these services a very natural application of the 
principle without the necessity for any such rigid mechanical 
methods of enforcement as are now provided. 

From still another angle, the proposition is an attractive 
one in that it could readily be developed into a means of 
stimulating and rewarding the efforts of the local employees. 
The detail to Washington for a term of years could be made 
by attaching attractive salary conditions and by furnishing 
transportation to and from Washington, a prize to be con- 
tended for by the employee of the local service. Particu- 
larly would this be the case were any positive measures taken 
to afford the employee at Washington greater opportunity for 
taking advantage of its educational facilities, as urged in an- 
other place.- 

Obviously there are limits and the branches of the service 
differ materially in respect to what may be done along the line 
here suggested. Inasmuch as the whole proposition is, so 
far as official recognition is concerned, almost entirely novel,^ 
it has not been thought worth while to inquire more particu- 

*The extent to which the departmental and field services are now 
regarded as distinct is indicated by the fact that the Civil Service Com- 
mission regularly holds separate examinations for the position of field 
clerk and departmental clerk, though the scope and difficulty of the ex- 
amination is the same in both cases. 



290 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

larly, so far as such inquiry could be made short of actual ex- 
perience, what these limitations are in the several services. 

The political appointment of local chief officers is an impor- 
tant factor in hindering the extension of the area of selection 
from within in the field services. Under the method of politi- 
cal appointment, it is, of course, natural that the postmaster, 
collector, or district attorney be a resident of the district under 
his jurisdiction. From a purely administrative standpoint, 
there is, of course, no reason why this should be so ; any more 
than it is thought necessary that an army officer placed in charge 
of one of the military departments into which the United States 
is divided need be a resident of that department; or, in the For- 
est Service, that the forester in charge of a national forest be 
a resident of the district in which the forest is located. The 
practice of appointing the head of the office from the locality 
results in a tendency to view the office as a whole as very much 
a local one, the personnel of which is to be treated as a local 
organization rather than as an integral part of the great na- 
tional organization of which it forms a part. Only to a very 
limited, almost a negligible, extent is the subordinate officer in 
the local post office, the local custom house, or the local internal 
revenue office regarded as a member of a national service who 
may be assigned to service wherever his services can be used 
to the best advantage to himself and to the service. Only to 
a slight extent does he have any prospect of promotion other 
than what is offered within the particular station or office to 
which he is attached. 

It is difficult to conceive of a scheme of organization better 
adapted to deprive the personnel of incentive for good work, 
to stifle ambition for advancement within the service, or to tie 
the hands of a central administration desiring to put its Service 
upon a really efficient and economical basis. Once the head- 
ships of these local offices were placed upon a merit basis, 
there undoubtedly would develop in due course the complete 
"nationalization" of the whole service.^ The chief positions 

* It must be admitted that the merit selection of presidential post- 
masters does not as yet appear to have had any influence in this direction. 
The limitation of competition for the postmasterships, even of the lar^- 



'iH^ii 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 291 

in each office would be graded and classified with positions of 
comparable responsibility and difficulty in other offices of the 
service ; and provision would be made whereby one performing 
distinguished service in one office might look for promotion to 
any one of the other offices in the country which might offer 
greater opportunities than the one with which he happened to 
be connected. In this way a postmaster who had distinguished 
himself by a reorganization or by a particularly efficient ad- 
ministration of a post office in a city of 250,000 might be pro- 
moted to the charge of the post office in a city of 1,000,000 and 
so forth. With such a "nationalization" of the service joined 
to a placing of the higher positions in the central administra- 
tion at Washington upon a merit basis, the great field admin- 
istration services of the government — the postal, customs, rev- 
enue, public land, and similar services — would indeed become 
a field attractive to men of ability and ambition, a field offer- 
ing if not a "career" at least a distinct vocation. 

The complete and immediate destruction of the tradition of 
local residence is not necessary; it could be broken down at 
first only to the extent of permitting the transfer of a post- 
master to any post office in his state ; and the area of selection 
would gradually be widened by districting the country. 

The program here suggested for the postmasterships is, of 
course, equally applicable to the other classes of local chief 
officers, as soon as the President or Congress shall place their 
selection on a merit basis. 

Before leaving the subject of the area of selection from 
within a word may be said with respect to the unclassified 
services which are on a merit basis — the Public Health Service 
and the Foreign Service. In the Public Health Service the reg- 
ulations regarding entrance are such as to make transfer into 
the service impossible. In the case of the Foreign Service, a 
person in the employ of the State Department at a salary of 
$1,800 (whether in a classified or unclassified position) may be 

est cities, to residents of the post office district has undoubtedly been a 
factor in sustaining the tradition of "localized" postal personnel. The 
fact that the system of selection has been one of recruitment and not of 
selection from within has been an equally important factor. 



292 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

transferred to any grade of the Diplomatic Service, and a per- 
son so employed at a salary of $2,000 or more may be trans- 
ferred to any grade of the consular service above that at which 
entrance to the service from outside is made ; that is, above that 
of Consul, Class 8. 

The diplomatic service and the consular service are re- 
garded as distinct branches of the foreign service and transfers 
from one to another are not permitted "unless upon the desig- 
nation by the President for examination and the successful 
passing of the examination prescribed for the service to which 
such transfer is made. Unless the exigencies of the service 
imperatively demand it, such person to be transferred shall 
not have preference in designation for the taking of the exami- 
nation or in appointment from the eligible list, but shall follow 
the course of procedure prescribed for all applicants for ap- 
pointment to the service which he desires to enter." 

It is rather difficult to perceive the reasons for this appar- 
ent desire to prevent movement from one to the other of the 
branches of the foreign service. 

Technical Obstacles to Selection from Within. — It re- 
mains to consider certain technical obstacles to the application 
of the principle of selection from within which have developed 
in the federal service not out of considerations of general per- 
sonnel policy, to which they are indeed in every case directly 
opposed, but out of technical or financial conditions. The effect 
of the technical obstacles is, in some cases, not merely to com- 
pel a resort to general competition where selection from within 
would equally well or better serve the interests of the service 
but actually to make impossible selection from within, in effect 
awarding a preference in selection to those outside the service. 

The first of these obstacles to selection from within is the 
line of division between the competitive and the excepted posi- 
tions. It obviously would be violative of the principle of com- 
petition if one who entered the service in an excepted position 
were permitted to be promoted or reassigned to a competitive 
position, and except in one or two insignificant special cases 
the rules consequently do not permit this to be done, Thus 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 293 

it may result, and occasionally does result, that though the in- 
terests of the services would in the particular instance best be 
served by a promotion or reassignment of this kind, it cannot 
be made. 

Except in the single matter of the promotion of unclassified 
sub-clerical employees to competitive clerical positions to which 
reference already has been made, the law and rules recognize 
no method by which one holding an unclassified position may 
be given a classified status by any method other than original 
entrance; and again, within the classified service, with minor 
exceptions, no person holding an excepted or non-competitive 
position can be given a competitive position. 

Again the converse situation may present itself, and since 
the excepted position is more commonly found in the higher 
levels of the service this is indeed more likely to occur. It 
may be desired to promote or reassign a competitive employee 
to an excepted position. There is, of course, no rule whatever 
preventing this. But should the employee accept the position 
or reassignment he would lose his classified competitive status 
and the protection against removal, both legal and traditional, 
which this implies. Hence the result is not infrequent that the 
competitive employee declines a favorable reassignment rather 
than incur the risks attached to the loss of competitive status. 

Being designed to protect the competitive principles against 
evasion, these restrictions, of course, are wholly justified and 
some may even think them not sufficiently rigid. They must 
be borne with as a necessary evil so long as the competitive 
principle receives only limited acceptance in the federal per- 
sonnel system; but they furnish an additional reason for the 
contention already advanced on other grounds, that the present 
division of the service into classified and unclassified groups, 
and competitive and excepted groups, is an impediment to 
effective personnel administration and should be eliminated. 

Another necessary restriction on free movement within the 
classified competitive service itself arises out of the apportion- 
ment principle. That principle which is laid down in the civil 
service law (Section 2, Second, Third) requires that "as nearly 



294 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

as the conditions of good administration will warrant . . . ap- 
pointments . . ."to positions in Washington "shall be appor- 
tioned among the several States and Territories and the District 
of Columbia upon the basis of population." It is to be noted 
that the act refers specifically to "appointments" ; but the rules 
endeavor to apply the principle also to transfers from a "non- 
apportioned" to an "apportioned" position. Where the state of 
which the person proposed to be transferred is a resident has 
already received an excessive share of appointments (or trans- 
fers) the transfer can be effected only by the special permission 
of the Commission on certificate of the appointing officer that 
the transfer is required in the interests of good administration, 
setting forth in detail the reasons therefor. (Rule X, Para- 
graph 8, B.) The Commission, in an official circular, has 
further interpreted this requirement as follows : ^ 

It must be shown that the employee possesses qualifications 
not possessed by persons tested by competitive examinations, 
or some unusual or highly technical knowledge, ability, or skill 
which is required for the most efficient performance of the 
duties of the position to which his transfer is sought, which 

^ "Information Concerning Transfers." United States Civil Service 
Commission, Form 305, December, 1917, page 5. The distinction between 
apportioned and non-apportioned positions and the method of applyjug 
the rule of apportionment in original appointments are discussed in the 
chapter dealing with recruitment methods in the classified competitive 
service. The following rulings of the Commission relative to the appli- 
cation of the apportionment rule in transfers are of interest here. 

"When an employee is proposed for a transfer involving a charge 
to the quota of a State or Territory already in excess under the law of 
apportionment the transfer may be allowed so far as the apportionment 
is concerned (i) if at the time of the proposed transfer the State or 
Territory of residence of such employee is within reach of certification 
from the register appropriate for the position to which transfer is pro- 
posed; or (2) if transfer is requested during the life of the register from 
which he was appointed to the non-apportioned service and if the State 
or Territory of his residence is reached." (Minute of Commission, 
March 7, 1910.) 

"In view of the necessity for change of climate after service in the 
Tropics, as shown by the orders and practice of the War Department, 
and as recognized by the Commission in transfers from the Philippines, 
such orders and practice will be regarded as indicating that such trans- 
fers are required in the interest of good administration where employees 
proposed for transfer flrom the Isthmus have rendered three years or 
more of satisfactory service and are otherwise eligible. The apportion- 
ment will be waived in all such cases." (Minute of Commission, July 
18, 1910.) 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 295 

it would be difficult or impossible to obtain through the usual 
methods of filling such positions. This showing must be made 
to the satisfaction of the Commission. 

A final limitation upon the freedom of the appointing officer 
to select from within the service arises from the distinction be- 
tween statutory positions and those the salary of which is paid 
from lump sum appropriations. In a preceding chapter this 
distinction was explained and the view taken not only that the 
actual application of the distinction was wholly illogical and 
not explainable upon any consistent basis but that the whole 
theory of statutory positions was radically incorrect from the 
standpoint alike of personnel and of financial administration. 
In the present connection the additional fault is found that 
this useless and improper distinction is made the basis for a 
limitation upon the freedom of the appointing officer in select- 
ing from within the service, and may even necessitate a resort 
to general competition where selection from within the service 
would be wholly adequate. 

By Act of August 26, 1912/ it was provided as follows: 
"Nor shall any person employed at a specific salary be hereafter 
transferred and hereafter paid from a lump sum appropriation 
at a rate of compensation greater than such specific salary." ^ 
The term "specific salary" in this act has been construed to have 
the same meaning as "statutory" salary. The efifect of this 
provision is consequently virtually to close to the employee so 
unfortunate as to be appointed to a statutory position all hope 
of advancement except by promotion to another statutory posi- 

'^2)^ Stat. 626. This act applied only to the fiscal year 1913. By act 
of March 4, 1913 {2>7 Stat. 790), the provision was made permanent. 

^The section also requires that "heads of departments shall cause 
this provision to be enforced." In the same section is contained the re- 
striction already referred to in the chapter dealing with compensation, 
prohibiting the payment of personal service at a rate of compensation 
in excess of that paid for the same or similar service during the preced- 
ing fiscal year. The section also contains a proviso "that this section 
shall not apply to mechanics, artisans, their helpers or assistants, laborers, 
or any other employees whose duties are of similar character, required 
in carrying on the various manufacturing and construction operations of 
the Government." While in terms this proviso applies to the entire 
section, its specific application is chiefly if not solely to the provision 
just referred to regarding payment at rates in excess of those paid in 
the preceding year. 



296 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tion, in which case his situation as respects subsequent promo- 
tion is again the same. It is exceedingly difficult for him to 
obtain from Congress an increase in the statutory salary which 
he enjoys and it is against the law for his administrative su- 
perior to promote him to a position at a higher salary, which 
is paid out of a lump sum appropriation. Under these circum- 
stances, it is not surprising that not a few incumbents of statu- 
tory positions found the sole avenue of escape in entering open 
competitive examinations and securing original appointment to 
the service at increased rates of compensation. As applied to 
appointment within the same department, however, the Comp- 
troller of the Treasury soon ruled that this procedure was an 
evasion of the law when, as was almost always the case, the 
position to which appointment was made was paid from a lump 
sum appropriation. As respects appointment to other depart- 
ments, on the other hand, Congress, in 191 7, enacted the statute 
to which reference has already been made, prohibiting the pay- 
ment out of a lump sum appropriation, to any person hitherto 
employed in another department, of a higher salary than he re- 
ceived in such department, within one year after the cessation 
of his service in the first department. In short, in the attempt 
to prevent possible minor abuses in the fixing of compensation 
rates by administrative officers, made possible only by its own 
complete failure to provide a standard classification of duties 
and a standard scale of compensation rates. Congress, by suc- 
cessive enactments, has built up around the unfortunate in- 
cumbent of the statutory position a prison from which there is 
hardly any escape except by resignation from the service. 

One may derive a certain satisfaction in the contemplation 
of this sorry history from observing how completely Con- 
gress has failed to place any restriction whatever in the way of 
reassignment from one "lump sum" position to another. As 
was set forth in the preceding chapter, the number of positions 
and the payroll totals paid from lump sum appropriations 
greatly exceed those on the statutory rolls. The apparent fail- 
ure of the Congressional committees to appreciate the incon- 
sistency in the legislation which they have developed on this 



PROMOTION VERSUS RECRUITMENT 297 

head is indicative of the lack of comprehensive study and 
planning which has been so characteristic of nearly all Congres- 
sional action in personnel matters. 



CHAPTER IX 

METHODS OF SELECTION FROM WITHIN: REASSIGNMENT 
AND PROMOTION 

To consider methods of selection from within before con- 
sidering methods of recruitment may at first sight appear il- 
logical. In the life history of the employee, recruitment must 
precede promotion or reassignment; and in the construction 
of a new personnel system, the first step must be that of re- 
cruitment. In a well established, going organization such as 
the federal service, however, recruitment should be resorted to 
only when selection from within does not promise satisfactory 
results. From the standpoint of a going concern, therefore, a 
discussion of the methods of selection from within logically 
precedes a consideration of methods of recruitment. 
Promotion and Reassignment Distinguished from Increase 
of Compensation. — At the outset promotion and reassign- 
ment should be clearly distinguished from a mere change in 
compensation. The former, in their proper senses, are methods 
of selection from within the service for a particular post, and 
imply selection for a position which is rated as of a different 
grade than the one formerly occupied. A mere salary change, 
on the other hand, has nothing to do with selection for a 
vacancy. There is no selection of a particular employee for a 
particular post. The employee continues to perform the same 
duties in the same position, but at a different rate of compensa- 
tion. 

Obvious as this distinction is, it has been necessary to point 
it out, since it is one that must be kept in mind constantly in 
endeavoring to think clearly about matters of personnel, and 
because, despite its obviousness, it is so frequently lost sight 
of in discussions on the subject. Methods adapted for deter- 
mining salary increases are wholly unsuitable for determining 

298 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 299 

selections for posts of greater responsibility. The absence of 
well defined titles with precise descriptions of duties is the con- 
dition primarily responsible for a failure to appreciate this 
distinction. Where such a classification exists, the difference 
between a mere increase of salary within the same class of 
duties, and a change in duties involving a clearly higher re- 
sponsibility, is clear to every one. At this point, therefore, as 
at so many preceding and subsequent points the fundamental 
value of a clear classification of positions again reveals itself. 
Reassignment versus Promotion. — The consideration of 
reassignments together with promotions may not be clear at 
first sight. To the employee, a promotion generally means a 
much greater advance in compensation than does what com- 
monly goes by the name of a reassignment; but looked at as 
operations of the personnel system, both are designed to move 
an individual to a position in which he will be of greater value 
to the service. The primary difference between the two is that, 
in promotion, the position to which the employee is moved is 
recognized as being so much higher in responsibility or difficulty 
as to be in a higher grade, whereas, in reassignment, the dif- 
ference is not sufficient to constitute a difference in grade. 
Again a notion of permanency is associated with promotion, 
whereas reassignment carries with it no such element. A final 
distinguishing feature of reassignment is that it may involve, 
in some cases, a mere change of position and duties without 
any change in the degree o£ responsibility or in the difficulty 
of the duties. Even In this case, however, the process, from 
the standpoint of personnel administration, has the same 
object; that of selecting an employee for a position in which 
he can render better service. 

Reassignments of another type are sometimes encountered, 
especially In large services with a considerable number of per- 
sons performing the same services on a standardized basis. An 
employee may be moved from one part of the organization to 
another where he continues to perform the same duties. Such 
reassignment may be made to meet changes in the needs for 
service or they may be made to meet the personal preference 



300 ^ THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of the employee. Reassignment to a position involving the 
same duties and responsibilities in another branch of the or- 
ganization, made merely to meet a change in the flow or load 
of work, is generally a purely administrative matter outside 
the field of personnel administration. Reassignments to meet 
the personal preferences of the employee involve questions of 
maintaining the general morale and individual efficiency and 
will receive consideration in the chapters dealing with this 
subject. 

In approaching the subject of the methods of reassignment 
and promotion mention should be made again of the numerous 
restrictions in current statutes and rules which limit the power 
of administrative officers formally to reassign personnel from 
one branch of the service to another. Those restrictions have 
been fully discussed already in the preceding chapter and need 
not be reviewed here. 

Reassignment Involving No Change of Compensation or 
Grade. — No adequate organization or procedure has been 
developed in the federal service for studying the special 
qualifications or preferences of individual employees or the 
special requirements of particular positions with a view to a 
matching of the two. Nor in few, if any, services are vacancies 
in the several divisions subjected to systematic scrutiny by 
the administrative officer for the purpose of selecting the most 
deserving employees for the positions which hold greatest 
promise of promotion. 

In a small bureau, a single central personnel officer is able 
to keep watch over the whole of the personnel and organiza- 
tion. In the larger bureaus or services, however, such a single 
central officer will not be sufficient. Responsibility for study- 
ing the personnel and the current changes in organization must 
be developed at lower levels. In each major division, and, if 
the size of the organization justifies, in each unit of each di- 
vision, such a study should be the definite duty of some capable 
assistant; and those so detailed should be brought together in 
a central organization for conference and decision, headed, 
perhaps, by the chief personnel officer of the bureau or service. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 301 

Through such machinery far greater assurance can be had 
than under present conditions that the work and the employees 
will be properly matched ; and that opportunities for reassign- 
ments making for greater efficiency or more harmonious work- 
ing relations will be revealed and utilized. 

Reassignment from one bureau or service of a department 
to another is naturally much less common than is reassign- 
ment within a given service or bureau, and, as already seen, 
the restrictions upon such reassignment are more severe. Here, 
too, however, an elaboration, for the department as a whole, of 
the machinery suggested for a single bureau or service for 
developing opportunities for reassignment is greatly to be de- 
sired. A periodical conference of personnel officers of the 
several bureaus or services of a department would be an ef- 
fective way of accomplishing this end. 

Such a conference, however, need not consist of a single 
officer from each unit. If the personnel falls, as it usually does, 
into distinct classes, it may be desirable to designate an officer 
for each group, and for the officers interested in cognate groups 
only to meet for interchange of opinion or for joint decision. 
This latter type of organization is especially adaptable to the 
federal service as a whole. With respect to so large a group 
as the clerical services, an organization of this kind would be 
confronted with a fairly sizeable task but one which, if the 
lower units were functioning properly, would be readily man- 
ageable. In other services, however, as, for example, in the 
chemical and medical and engineering services, the area covered 
would be so small as to make any elaborate or expensive organ- 
ization of such central group unnecessary. 

The several departments having developed no organization 
for their individual use have not cooperated, of course, in de- 
veloping an organization for the reassignment of the person- 
nel from one department to another; and under the existing 
restrictive regulations, designed to prevent the free movement 
of personnel from one department to another, it must be ad- 
mitted that such an organization or procedure could find 
but little scope for usefulness. 



302 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The failure of the several departments up to this time to 
make any greater progress than above indicated in the develop- 
ment of definite organization and procedure for handling mat- 
ters of reassignment of personnel is to be charged primarily to 
the departments themselves and perhaps especially to the per- 
sonnel officers of those departments. The office of appointment 
clerk in the several departments has been regarded as in the 
nature of a clerical rather than an executive, administrative, or 
even consultative post. Had this not been the case it is cer- 
tain that this important matter would have received attention. 
The Civil Service Commission, however, must bear its share of 
the responsibility. Had it construed its functions properly it 
would have taken the initiative in assisting and urging the de- 
partments towards the development of an organization of this 
type. 

In this connection should be considered the desirability 
of giving special attention to the assignment of new recruits. 
In some cases duties are so specialized and vacancies so infre- 
quent that the process of selection is designed solely with an 
eye to those peculiar duties. The persons selected are thus 
automatically assigned to those duties; and if they fail to suit, 
cannot be turned to other use. In other cases, appointments 
are so frequent and numerous that considerable latitude is left 
for administrative discretion in determining the particular 
duties or place to which each recruit is to be assigned and, more 
especially, for observing the performance of the recruit during 
the first few days or weeks of employment with a view, if 
necessary, to reassigning him or Tier to more appropriate duties. 
It is the well nigh universal experience in personnel manage- 
ment that the mere interest of the administrator in securing the 
effective performance of his work does not suffice to insure 
that he will give adequate attention to this matter. Unless 
special means are taken to insure that the work of the recruit 
is carefully observed and consideration given to the desir- 
ability of reassignment, the matter will be substantially 
neglected. 

Special measures to be taken under this head consist in 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 303 

the institution of a procedure for a regular report by the im- 
mediate superior of the recruit, at frequent intervals during the 
first few months of the recruit's service, to the administrative 
officer charged with responsibility for the work of locating each 
member of the force at a point where he will be of greatest 
service. 

Reassignments Involving Increase of Compensation. — In 
respect to the methods to be used in selection, reassignments 
involving increase of compensation do not differ materially 
from reassignments involving no such increase. The applica- 
tion of correct methods is, however, in such cases, more im- 
portant. A reassignment involving increase of compensation 
is, from the standpoint of the personnel system, merely a se- 
lection of the employee best qualified for the new assignment. 
From the standpoint of the employee, however, it is also a 
reward for previous faithful and efficient service. In many 
cases the employee most fit for the reassignment is also the 
most deserving of recognition as a reward for previous service. 
Not infrequently, however, cases arise where the employee 
peculiarly fitted for the vacancy is not, from the standpoint 
of length, or even efficiency, of service, the most deserving. 
His selection, though seemingly advantageous, may thus re- 
sult also in a loss of zeal, or even discontent, on the part of 
other employees. The administrative officer is here confronted 
with two opposing considerations, and the choice between them 
must be made purely on the basis of the balancing of the two. 
The same considerations apply, though perhaps even more 
sharply, In the case of promotion. To devise any mechanical 
procedure for this purpose would be difficult if not impossible. 
The Case for Formal Promotion Methods. — Where, how- 
ever, the increase in responsibility and compensation is as great 
as is usually the case in a promotion, the case for restrict- 
ing the free discretion of the administrative officer by some 
formal method of selection for promotion is much stronger. 
There is thus presented one of the most difficult questions en- 
countered in the whole field of personnel administration — that 
of formal methods In selecting for promotion. That the use 



304 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of such aids to judgment is highly desirable need hardly be 
stated. A mistake in promotion is, generally speaking, far 
more serious than a mistake in recruitment. An error in re- 
cruitment, especially in the lower grades, may usually be more 
or less completely remedied by the reassignment of the in- 
dividual selected, or in extreme cases by his dismissal before 
or at the end of the probationary period. In the case of pro- 
motion, however, a selection once made is generally difficult 
to unmake. The officer having responsibility, therefore, should 
employ whatever aids suggest themselves to him as worthy to 
assist his judgment. The use of service records or efficiency 
records, covering the service of the employees from among 
whom selection is to be made for a considerable period, is 
manifestly highly desirable. Unless the employees are few 
in number, the administrative officer without such aids is apt 
to overlook or forget past incidents, facts, or pieces of work, 
which may have an important bearing upon the determination 
of relative merits of the several employees for promotion. 

It is evident that aids to the administrative officer in select- 
ing employees for promotion may be of two kinds : those volun- 
tarily established by him and those required by statute or some 
superior authority. It is with the latter only that the considera- 
tion that follows has to do. 

In the later discussion of formal methods of recruitment, 
it will be pointed out that, although those methods originated 
solely in the desire to restrict the discretion of administrative 
officers, for the purpose of preventing the familiar abuses that 
develop in the absence of formal methods, they are basically 
justified by the inherent requirements of recruitment itself. 
Even if the discretion of the administrative officer in respect to 
recruitment Is left unhampered, he must, unless his selections 
are to be determined wholly without reference to the needs of 
the service, employ methods not unlike those developed In re- 
sponse to the demand for civil service reform. In promotion, 
however, the situation Is entirely dIflFerent. Here, In all but 
the largest organizations, the administrative officer Is In such 
close touch with his subordinates that a formal process of se- 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 305 

lection for promotion is not imperative. When a vacancy 
arises v^hich may be filled by promotion, the administrator 
usually knows almost as a foregone conclusion the employee 
most suitable for promotion. Even if the administrator is 
without personal knowledge of the eligibles for a given pro- 
motion, they are seldom so numerous as to make impracticable 
selection by a personal canvass of their relative merits. The 
imposition of formal methods of selection can thus be justi- 
fied, if at all, only on the ground, either that they tend to re- 
sult in a better selection than would the informal exercise of 
judgment by the administrative officer, or that some more or 
less mechanical restriction on the discretion of the latter is 
necessary to prevent the abuse of that discretion for political 
or personal reasons. 

The employment of formal methods of selection for promo- 
tion thus, in hardly any case, springs from any real need for 
such methods inherent in the process itself. Their use can be 
justified, therefore, only on the ground of the necessity for 
some restriction on the discretion of the administrative officer. 
The chief reason why such restriction may be deemed desir- 
able is, of course, the need for preventing the entrance of politi- 
cal or other improper considerations in making selection for 
promotion. 

The exclusion of political or personal considerations from 
promotion is no less important than their exclusion from re- 
cruitment. Where the entire system of recruitment is domi- 
nated by politics, the whole personnel system is, of course, 
poisoned at its source. Where, however, politics does not 
completely control the appointment process, but merely oc- 
casionally influences a selection for appointment, the conse- 
quences are, in most cases, not nearly so serious as in the in- 
jection of political considerations in matters of promotion. 
The reason is obvious. The political appointee merely prevents 
the appointment of one, who while actually more deserving, has 
nevertheless no special claim upon the position ; but the politi- 
cal selection of one employee for promotion as against other 
employees actually deserving of the promotion, deprives the 



3o6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

deserving employees of perhaps the chief reward for which 
they have been striving during long years of service. Even 
an occasional political promotion is thus a severe blow at the 
integrity of the personnel system. 

The elimination of political consideration from promo- 
tion is not, however, the only purpose for which formal meth- 
ods of selection may be instituted. Closely related to it is 
the desirability of giving the employees that assurance of im- 
personal fairness in making promotions which the use of for- 
mal methods provides. Though administrative officers may not 
be actuated by personal or political considerations, neverthe- 
less a feeling not infrequently arises among the employees that 
such motives do have weight. Incidentally it may be remarked 
that, in not a few instances, the employees in daily working 
relations with the person selected for promotion are in a better 
position to form an estimate of his capabilities and limitations 
than the superior whose contact with him has not been so 
intimate. Whether this is so or not, the fact remains that in 
most large organizations, public or private, the uncontrolled 
exercise of discretion in selections for promotion almost in- 
variably tends to result in general dissatisfaction. For this 
reason the use of formal methods of selection for promotion 
may be regarded as inherently desirable. 

The extent to which formal methods of selection for pro- 
motion should be employed in the federal service depends, 
therefore, upon the answers to two questions: the extent to 
which present conditions in the federal service warrant the 
belief that formal methods of selection for promotion are 
necessary to prevent improper considerations in making promo- 
tions and the extent to which it is practicable to impose for- 
mal methods of selection for promotion which will be- actually 
efifectlve in securing a selection of the most deserving. It is not 
to be assumed, as is so often done, that rigid restrictions on 
the discretion of the administrative officer in making promo- 
tions are per se desirable and beneficent. In point of fact, 
as is common knowledge among those who have given the 
subject any first-hand study, the development of safeguards of 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 307 

this character, which will not impair the efficiency of the se- 
lective process, is a matter of extreme difficulty. Particularly 
is this so if such safeguards take the form of positive mechani- 
cal methods of selection — as by seniority, efficiency records, 
or examination. 

Existing Promotion Methods. — In seeking an answer to 
the two questions that have been propounded it is desirable 
first, to determine the current situation in the federal service, 
both as to the existence of formal methods of selection for 
promotion, and, where such methods of selection do not ob- 
tain, the extent to which political or personal considerations 
now tend to influence, if not control. 

The slight provision now found in the federal service for 
substituting formal methods of selection for promotion, in 
whole or in part, for the discretion of the administrative offi- 
cer falls under two heads : central and departmental. The cen- 
tral restrictions are imposed upon the departments by statutes, 
civil service rules, or executive order, and are beyond the con- 
trol of the department itself. 

Central Restrictions. — In the preceding chapter mention 
was made of the requirement in the classified service for ex- 
amination by the Civil Service Commission when a person is 
proposed for promotion to a position the entrance tests for 
which are different from those for the position then held by the 
employee. In that chapter, this provision was considered from 
the standpoint of its effectiveness in ensuring that, if the ad- 
ministrative officer selects from within, the person selected 
shall be at least of a minimum capability. This provision, of 
course, is also in effect a restriction upon the discretion of the 
administrative officer in making selection for promotion. It 
is, however, of a wholly negative character, merely preventing 
him from selecting one so wholly below a proper standard 
of capacity as to be unable to meet even *the qualifying rating 
set for the examination. In subsequent sections dealing with 
positive methods by which the actual selection of the particular 
employee is determined, discussion will be had of efficiency 
records and also of competitive examinations for promotion. 



3o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The use of either of these methods as a positive means of se- 
lection may, and almost invariably does, imply the setting of 
a minimum standard of attainment either on efficiency record 
or on the competitive examination, which is a prerequisite to 
selection for promotion. Again, even where the system of 
selection by seniority exists, a minimum requirement may be 
set. In all these latter cases, however, the existence of a 
minimum requirement is of secondary importance since the 
method itself involves a more or less complete suppression of 
the discretion of the administrative officer by a more or less 
mechanical method of selection; so that it is not highly ma- 
terial whether there is also incidentally a negative restriction 
in the form of a minimum requirement. 

Wholly logical as is the requirement of a minimum stand- 
ard of efficiency for promotion, it appropriately finds its place 
chiefly in a personnel system which has not yet emerged from 
the stage of political domination in its grossest form. Once 
that stage is passed, it is altogether unlikely that the admin- 
istrative officer will so far set at naught the requirements of 
efficiency as to select for promotion one so devoid of capacity as 
to have been unable to obtain even the required minimum on 
his efficiency rating or on the qualifying examination. 

The civil service rule bearing upon promotion (Rule XI) 
enjoins upon the Commission the principle that "competitive 
test or examination shall, as far as practicable and useful, be 
established to test fitness for promotion in the classified 
service." (Section i.) The Commission in 1910 stated that 
"in promotion from one grade to another it is believed that 
examinations now prescribed by the rules may profitably be 
made competitive where there is a sufficient number of em- 
ployees to justify it." ^ Nevertheless the Commissioh, in no 
single case, has required that an examination for promotion 
within the competitive service shall be competitive. The only 
instance in which the competitive method, involving competi- 
tive examination by the Commission, is now employed, is in 

* Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1910), p. 27. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 309 

connection with the promotion of persons in the labor class, 
in the so-called sub-clerical capacities of watchmen, messengers, 
and the like, to the position of clerk in the classified service. 
Under the regulations, competitive examinations are held for 
such promotions, to which all persons within the departments 
eligible to promotion compete and a single eligible list is 
established for the entire department. The competitive fea- 
ture of these examinations is, however, rather more nominal 
than real. Inasmuch as the number of candidates is always 
small in comparison to the clerical requirements of the de- 
partment, virtually every sub-clerical employee who passes the 
examinations is eventually appointed. The only effect of the 
examination is thus to determine the order of priority in 
which promotions shall be made, not to select for promotion 
one from many, as would be the effect were the competitive 
method applied to the more important promotions in which 
the supply of eligibles is far in excess of possible demand. 

In the unclassified services, the statutory or other central 
requirements regarding promotion methods are equally minor. 
The most important are found in the case of the commissioned 
officers of the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geo- 
detic Survey. In the Public Health Service there is a statutory 
restriction which provides that : "No ofificer shall be promoted 
to the rank of passed assistant surgeon (the second grade of 
the service) until after four years of service and a second 
examination as aforesaid;^ and no passed assistant surgeon 
shall be promoted to be surgeon until after due examination." ^ 
No statutory provision exists with reference tO' promotion to 
the rank of senior surgeon or assistant surgeon general. In 
the Coast and Geodetic Survey the law requires examination 
prior to promotion to any grade lower than the head of the 
organization.^ 

In the foreign service, the executive order of 1906, estab- 

* The reference is to the provision for entrance examination made 
in the preceding section, which requires "a satisfactory examination in 
the several branches of medicine, surgery, and hygiene before a board of 
medical officers of the said service." 

* Act of January 4, 1899 (25 Stat, 639). 
''40 Stat, 88, 



3IO THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

lishing the present system of examinations for admission to 
the consular service, makes the following provision relative 
to methods of promotion in that service (Section lo) : ^ 

No promotion shall be made except for efficiency, as shown 
by the work that the officer has accomplished, the ability, 
promptness, and diligence displayed by him in the performance 
of his official duties, his conduct and his fitness for the con- 
sular service. 

In the diplomatic service it is enjoined by the order of 1909, 
which established entrance examinations for this service (Sec. 
2), that "there may be no promotion except upon well estab- 
lished efficiency as shown in the service." These requirements 
have in both cases manifestly only a moral value.^ Over the 
remainder of the foreign service no central regulations are 
applied. It need hardly be added that in the various agencies 
whose personnel is excepted in whole or in part from require- 
ments of the civil service law there exists no statutory re- 
strictions regulating promotion, nor is any procedure imposed 
by civil service rule or executive order. 

Departmental Restrictioits. — Passing now to the provi- 
sions which have been made by the departments themselves 
for regulating promotions, it may be said with substantial ac- 
curacy that such regulations exist over an area of the service 
so small as to be almost negligible. In the departmental service 
at Washington orders are to be found in most of the depart- 
ments calling for the maintenance of service or efficiency rec- 
ords for most classes of employees. The forms provided for 
the maintenance of these records and the regulations governing 
the making of the entries themselves are extremely diverse. 

^ It is also provided in the section (Sec. i) providing for tfie filling 
of all grades above that of consul class 8 by promotion, that such promo- 
tion shall be "based upon ability and efficiency as shown in the service." 

^ The unregulated discretion in making selection for promotion in 
the consular and diplomatic services now vested in the President is not 
qualified even to the extent of requiring that a consul or secretary serve 
a given length of time in any one grade (or any time whatever) before 
promotion to the next higher grade. The policy represented by such a 
regulation, however, is adhered to in practice except under very special 
circumstances. (Report on the Foreign Service, National Civil Service 
Reform League, p. 61.) 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 311 

Consideration of these variations, so far as it is practicable, is 
reserved for a subsequent section in which the place of efficiency 
records in the process of selecting for promotion is separately 
discussed. For the present purpose it is sufficient to say that 
in virtually no case is controlling force accorded to these rec- 
ords. They are regarded almost invariably as a mere guide 
to the discretion of the administrative officer.^ 

In the foreign service, in the student interpreter corps, a 
system of qualifying examinations is in force as a prerequisite 
to the advancement from the grade of interpreter to that of 
interpreter qualified for the post of assistant Japanese, Chinese, 
or Turkish secretary, and again from that rank to the rank of 
interpreter qualified for the grade of consul or for the post 
of Japanese, Chinese, or Turkish secretary, and, subject to 
such examination, promotion to these grades is by seniority. 
Within the consular and diplomatic services proper, however, 
no formal promotional procedure is prescribed. 

In the Public Health Service, by departmental regulations, 
promotions from the grade of assistant surgeon to that of 
passed assistant surgeon, and from the grade of passed as- 
sistant surgeon to that of surgeon are governed by seniority, 
and must be awarded at the end of a given period of service 
(fixed at four years in the first grade and at eight years in 
the second grade), upon the passing of a qualifying examina- 
tion. As will be pointed out subsequently, however, the man- 
datory and well nigh automatic promotions thus found in this 
service do not in themselves represent actual selection for ad- 
vancement but merely the attainment of a higher rank and 
salary. The regulations of the Public Health Service provide 
for the periodic promotion of the noncommissioned staff 
known as the scientific personnel, which is divided into six 

* In the examining force of the Patent Office is encountered a system 
of efficiency records and competitive examinations which, in conjunction 
with length of service, are actually given controlling force in determining 
the selection for advancement from one grade to another. The grades, in 
question, however, do not represent changes in duty but merely in com- 
pensation rate, and the system in question, therefore, is not regarded as 
a system of selection for promotion but merely as one of selection for 
increase of compensation and is accordingly discussed in a subsequent 
chapter dealing with that subject. 



312 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

classes. Promotions from Class VI through the intermediate 
grades to Class III are made after certain years of service 
and after passing a satisfactory examination. Promotions to 
Classes II and I are made only when a vacancy exists and after 
a review of the officer's record by a board of regular com- 
missioned medical officers. Within each grade the promotions 
are governed by seniority. As in the case of the commissioned 
officers the promotions do not represent selection for advance- 
ment but merely the attainment of a higher rank and salary. 

With the minor exceptions just reviewed, therefore, it may 
be said that the system of selection for promotion now pre- 
vailing in the federal service is that of substantially complete 
discretion in the hands of the administrative officers, qualified 
only in the competitive service by the requirement of a qualify- 
ing examination by the Civil Service Commission where the 
entrance tests for the position to which promotion is proposed 
are substantially different from those which the employee 
passed in obtaining his existing civil service status. The 
promotion system thus presents a strong contrast to the re- 
cruitment system prevailing over the major portion of the 
service. As opposed to that system it offers but few and weak 
safeguards, in the shape of restrictive law or surveillance by 
the Civil Service Commission, against the entrance of politi- 
cal considerations or of personal favoritism. 

In the absence of such safeguards, it is important to de- 
termine the extent to which such improper elements actually 
enter in the promotion process. Such information is neces- 
sarily preliminary to any discussion of the need for additional 
safeguards in this direction. 

Political or Other Improper Influence in Selection for 
Promotion. — It has been pointed out that the two major 
factors in the federal personnel system which make for the 
persistence of political considerations in personnel matters are : 
the political selection of the higher administrative officers; 
and the intervention in personnel matters of politicians out- 
side of the service, and more particularly of members of Con- 
gress. Were both these factors eliminated, that is to say. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 313 

were the administrative officers and all subordinate employees 
throughout the services selected on the basis of merit, and 
were an effective embargo placed upon attempts by persons 
outside the service to influence the action of administrative 
officers in personnel matters, the need for guarding against 
the intrusion of political considerations in promotion would 
virtually disappear. So long as these obvious steps for the 
exclusion of political considerations from the personnel ad- 
ministration of the federal government remain to be taken, 
the possibility of political influence as affecting promotion is 
one which must be reckoned with. To meet it appropriate re- 
strictions upon administrative discretion must be devised of a 
form and extent proportionate to the danger thought to exist. 

It is unfortunate that the facts regarding this matter are 
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain; and, where 
obtained, necessarily have application only to the particular 
branch of the service covered. Any attempt to appraise, in 
quantitative terms, the extent to which considerations, other 
than those of the good of the service, actually enter, or gov- 
ern in the manifold divisions and services of the federal 
service, would obviously be futile. There is no method avail- 
able to the individual inquirer of getting at the facts or any 
significant portion of them. 

In 1899, the Civil Service Commission commented as fol- 
lows on the situation then existing with reference to the 
intrusion of political or other improper considerations in selec- 
tion for promotion : 

At the time of the organization of the Commission the need 
of promotion regulations was considered so important that 
in its first report the following language was used : 

The principal causes of unjust promotions, in the absence 
of examinations, are (i) importunate solicitation and coer- 
cive influence from the outside, and (2) prejudice, favoritism, 
or corruption on the part of the appointing officers. We need 
not stop to Inquire which class of these abuses is the most fre- 
quent or pernicious. . . . The outside interference is far more 
indefensible, if not more pernicious, in regard to promotions 
than in regard to original admissions, for the importunate 



314 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

backer of a new man may perhaps know something of the 
merits of the friend he pushes; but it is sheer presumption for 
an outsider, ignorant as he must be of the duties of those in 
a bureau, to assume to instruct the officer at the head as to the 
merits of those who have served under him for years. Never- 
theless, and in plain repugnance to the spirit of the tenth sec- 
tion of the civil service act, the duty of promoting is now 
seriously embarrassed by solicitations and the coercive influ- 
ence of persons having no right of interference nor means of 
judging of the usefulness of the candidate. 

This subject is so closely related to good administration 
that it has since been discussed in nearly all of the later reports 
of the Commission. While the civil service act provides for 
promotion examinations, and provisions to this effect were in- 
cluded in previous civil service rules, practically no progress 
was made in putting general promotion regulations into force 
until 1896, when the Commission suggested that a rule gov- 
erning promotions be incorporated in the revised rules. Rule 
XI was accordingly promulgated by the President, and the 
Commission thereupon proceeded to formulate promotion regu- 
lations, which were submitted to the several Departments. 
Promotion regulations have been adopted by some of the De- 
partments while others have thus far taken no action on the 
suggestions of the Commission. As appointments to classi- 
fied positions are now made as a result of tests of fitness and 
without regard to influence, it has followed that the influence 
which was formerly exercised to control appointments as well 
as promotions is now directed to the control of promotions, 
in the absence of regulations requiring that they shall be made 
only upon merit. 

It is to be regretted that more progress has not been made 
toward adopting promotion regulations. . . . Promotion regu- 
lations cannot be put into force as required under the civil 
service act and rules without the full cooperation of the officers 
in the different branches of the service, and it is deemed proper 
to state that the Commission has not met with that cooperation 
which is necessary to a fulfillment of the requirements of the 
law in this respect. It is hoped that the need of promotion 
regulations, which has already been recognized in a number 
of the branches of the service, will result in their being put 
into operation throughout the entire service, so that promotions 
may be made only upon merit.^ 

^ Sixteenth Report of the United States Ciyil Service Commission 
(1899), p. i^, 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 315 

This statement represents the most recent positive char- 
acterization by the Commission of the actual condition with 
respect to poHtical pressure in promotions. In 1906, the Com- 
mission stated that "while it is undoubtedly true that a 
bureau chief or the head of any office may be able to decide 
better than any examination can the relative fitness of em- 
ployees in his office, it is unfortunate that he is not always 
allowed to exercise that discretion unhampered, owing to pres- 
sure exerted by outside influence." ^ Except for this some- 
what intangible characterization, the Commission, though it 
has on several occasions discussed the problem of promotion 
methods, has never ventured, since its report of 1899 just 
quoted, any dire(?t statement as to the extent to which political 
or other improper elements actually enter into selection for pro- 
motion. 

As has been set forth already, where the problem of the 
elimination of political consideration from selection is con- 
sidered, the postal service has been historically the chief con- 
cern of the civil service reformer. The process by which the 
system of competitive selection has gradually been extended 
over virtually the whole of the enormous personnel of that 
service has been traced in some detail. It is all the more re- 
markable that there has been so little development in this great 
service toward a formalization of the methods of selection for 
promotion, so as to insure the elimination of political considera- 
tions and to promote the morale of the service. In a subse- 
quent chapter mention will be made of the methods now in 
force in the postal service and in the railway mail service for 
controlling increases of salary within grades. All those meth- 
ods have reference, however, solely to the increase of salary 
within grades or within a given class of positions. So far 
as present information shows, no progress has been made for 
the development of similar methods in determining selection 
for promotion; that is, for example, for determining which of 
a number of clerks shall be made superintendent of mails, or 

^Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1906), p. 5. 



3i6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

superintendent of deliveries in a city post office; or, which of 
a number of senior foremen in the railway mail service shall 
be made a division superintendent. In the absence of such 
formal methods, it is probable that the political tradition which 
so long dominated the postal service has not been entirely 
eliminated in this field. That some consideration is still given 
to politics in this service would seem to be frankly recognized 
by President Wilson's Order of February i6, 1917/ providing 
that, in the promotion of postal employees to the position 
of Post Office Inspector, the Postmaster General should ap- 
portion the promotions fairly between the two chief political 
parties. 

The evidence available points to the same conclusion, as 
would be suggested a priori^ that the extent to which political 
considerations control promotions varies widely in the several 
services. In some branches, especially those where the work 
is distinctly scientific and technical, the discretion allowed in 
no wise has been abused but has been governed uniformly by 
considerations directed solely to the good of the service. In 
the other branches political influence undoubtedly plays no 
small part. Nevertheless, it would seem fair to say that, 
although existing conditions point to the need of some meas- 
ure of limitation on the discretion of administration officers 
to prevent the intrusion of political considerations in promotion, 
the situation does not call for any such rigidity or restrictive 
procedure as has been applied in the case of recruitment. 

A need undoubtedly exists, varying widely from one branch 
of the service to another, and from one class of employees 
to another, for formal methods of promotion. The employ- 
ment of such methods is, as has been pointed out, inherently 
desirable in order to improve the morale of the service. The 
question remaining is to ascertain the extent to which it is 
actually practicable to devise formal methods that will result 
in the promotion of the most deserving and best qualified. To 
that inquiry the remainder of this chapter is devoted. 

* Thirty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1917), p. 118. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 317 

The Technical Problem of Formal Promotion Methods. — 
The devising of formal methods of selection for promotion 
which shall effectively pick out the best qualified is one of 
the most difficult problems in the whole field of personnel 
administration. The difficulties are far greater than those en- 
countered in devising formal methods of recruitment; and the 
consequences of improper selection far more serious. If the 
methods of recruitment result in the selection of a less capable 
as against a more capable applicant, the fact is known, if at 
all, only to the few concerned in the work of recruitment. But 
if promotion methods fail, the fact is known to all the per- 
sonnel affected, and, more surely and universally than any 
other defect in personnel methods, breeds discontent, diminu- 
tion of incentive, and general impairment of morale. The 
necessity for not merely efficient but for highly accurate 
methods of selection is thus substantially more important in 
promotion than in recruitment; and from this it results that 
rigid or mechanical methods can be much less confidently and 
generally employed than in recruitment. 

Once it is determined to restrict in any way the discretion 
of the administrative officer in the making of selection for pro- 
motions and to draft regulations giving effect to such restric- 
tions, a logical and comprehensive classification of the service 
becomes essential. In the first place, what change of duties con- 
stitutes a promotion as distinguished from a mere reassign- 
ment must be defined, and even this primary decision may 
be fraught with great difficulty if no well thought out scheme 
of titles and no clearly expressed definitions of the duties ap- 
plicable to each title has been prepared. Again, it is neces- 
sary in formulating such regulations to determine the positions 
from among which selection for promotion to any given 
vacancy shall be permissible ; and this again is obviously diffi- 
cult unless the several types of work have been clearly dis- 
tinguished by appropriate titles and descriptions of duties. 
Indeed, unless such clear differentiation and designation exists, 
it is impossible even to tell when a given change in duties is 
in fact a promotion requiring the application of a promotion 



3i8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

procedure. To the failure to develop a workable classification 
of employments in the federal service is due, in large measure, 
the failure to develop any ordered promotional procedure. 
Types of Formal Methods of Promotion. — At least four 
types of formal methods of selection for promotion may be 
distinguished clearly: seniority; competitive examination; ef- 
ficiency records; and the method which mingles with or sub- 
stitutes for the judgment of the administrative superior, the 
judgment of an administrative board. In the first three the 
play of judgment is qualified partially or wholly by factors of 
a mathematical or rigid character, whereas in the fourth the 
number of minds brought to bear on the problem is greater 
but no mechanical method is employed. Any two or more of 
these four methods may be employed, of course, in combina- 
tion. 

Seniority. — As is well known, the promotion system of mil- 
itary services, in respect to commissioned officers, is one based 
primarily on the principle of seniority, qualified by non-com- 
petitive examination at certain points.^ Until fairly recently 
the same system was used in the naval service. In the civil 
establishments a similar system is found in the commissioned 
officers and scientific personnel of the Public Health Service 
and the commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Sur- 
vey. In neither of these services does the system of promotion 
by seniority extend to the higher ranks. In the Public Health 
Service the assistant surgeons general are chosen by the Sur- 
geon General from among the commissioned officers above the 
grade of assistant surgeon, the lowest rank. The Surgeon 
General is selected by the President without restriction, al- 
though it has been the practice to appoint an officer of the 
Service. In the Coast and Geodetic Survey the assistant direc- 
tor is designated by the Secretary of Commerce on the recom- 
mendation of the Director, from among the hydrographic and 

^ The question of the substitution or qualification of the system of 
seniority promotion in the regular army by a system of selection by 
boards of superior officers has been agitated recently before Congressional 
committees. Military opinion, as expressed by the higher officers, appears 
to be fairly evenly divided on the question. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 319 

geodetic engineers — the highest rank below that of Assistant 
Director. The Director must be selected from among the 
officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey not below the rank 
of commander.^ Despite these qualifications the system of 
promotion in the Public Health Service and the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey is basically one of seniority. The considera- 
tion given to this factor in the military services and the Public 
Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic Survey is sugges- 
tive of the possibility that, in a hierarchically organized, homo- 
geneous professional service, in which care is exercised in the 
initial recruitment, the system of promotion by seniority is 
not without merit.^ 

The arguments in favor of this system are : that the length 
of service of employees determines in great part their techni- 
cal qualifications; that under this system internal strife for 
advancement is eliminated; that those responsible for making 
promotions are relieved from political or other outside pressure, 
and the feeling that is engendered in the service that promo- 
tions are being made with an even-handed justice tends to 
promote good feeling and thus promote general morale. It is 
held, furthermore, that the greater certainty of promotion that 

'The Act of May 22, 1917 (40 Stat. 88) provides that hydrographic 
and geodetic engineers receiving $3,000 or more but less than $4,000 shall 
rank with commanders in the Navy. 

'In appraising the success which the system of promotion by senior- 
ity has achieved in the Public Health Service, it must always be borne 
in mind that that system is not properly speaking, a system of promo- 
tion but rather a system of advancement in rank and salary. The advance- 
ment of an officer to a higher rank does not of necessity involve a change 
in his duties and conversely the assignment of a member of the service 
to duties which are actually in the nature of a promotion, except in the 
two highest grades, does not involve any advancement in rank or compen- 
sation. It may consequently be said that the system of promotion in the 
Public Health Service is in large measure different from that obtaining 
in the other civil branches in that promotion in that service does not 
involve necessarily any change in duties. The net result of this situation 
is that the executive of the service has a large measure, of discretion if 
not a free hand, in selecting for any particular position which may become 
vacant in the service any of the great number of members of the service 
of the appropriate grade. Moreover, as has been pointed out already, 
once the level is reached in the Public Health Service where advancement 
in rank implies also a definite advancement in the type of duties, namely, 
the rank of Assistant Surgeon General, and Surgeon General the system 
is entirely one of free selection (or, as it is called, "detail" in the case of 
the Assistant Surgeons General and "nomination" by the President in the 
case of the Surgeon General). 



320 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

is held out to the individual employee attracts a better class 
of men to the service and retains in the service many valuable 
employees who would otherwise leave it. 

The obvious evil of a system of promotion by seniority 
is that it does not bring the best material to the top, that the 
young and brilliant member of the service is kept in a subor- 
dinate capacity for an undue period, while older members, of 
less ability, fill the higher places. The proper application of 
the system of promotion by seniority carries with it, as a nec- 
essary premise, that all employees below a superior standard 
of efficiency will be ruthlessly eliminated from the service lest 
they, in due course of time, reach the higher posts for which 
they are not qualified; or, barring this, that use is made of 
efficiency records or pass examinations in determining whether 
the principle shall apply in each particular case. If the stand- 
ards of entrance are high and raise at least a presumption of ca- 
pacity for promotion, selection by seniority, with proper safe- 
guards, may be resorted to; but if the conditions of the service 
require that large numbers of subordinates must be recruited 
who do not necessarily have to possess qualifications for 
advanced responsibility, such a system could only be disastrous. 
The Public Health Service is an illustration of the first type, 
and only because it satisfies that description so completely does 
the system of promotion by seniority in that service work so 
successfully. On the other hand, the clerical employments in 
the departments at Washington or in the postal service furnish 
an illustration of the second type. No presumption whatever is 
warranted that the ordinary clerk possesses a sufficient measure 
of executive ability to justify his promotion by mere seniority 
to a post of even intermediate executive responsibility. 

The prevailing practice regarding the elimination of the 
inefficient, including those whose inefficiency is due merely 
to superannuation, is thus a factor influencing the effective- 
ness of a system of promotion solely or chiefly by seniority. 
Where the rigid elimination of the inefficient does not prevail 
promotion by seniority frequently elevates to higher rank per- 
sons below a reasonable standard of efficiency. Particularly 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 3^1 

will this be so with respect to persons whose efficiency has been 
impaired through superannuation, as they will have, in most 
cases, a longer record of service than their juniors. A system 
of promotion by seniority is to be thought of, therefore, only 
where a fairly severe policy prevails in respect to elimination 
of the unfit. The policy in most branches of the federal service 
is one of undue liberality, or even timidity, on the part of 
administrative officers, in this respect. Under present condi- 
tions, therefore, the method of promotion based solely or 
even largely upon seniority can be recommended only for a 
very few places in the federal service. 

Except in the Public Health Service, in the examining force 
of the Patent Office, and in the Coast and Geodetic Sur- 
vey, seniority has not, so far as the writer has knowledge, 
been a controlling influence in making promotions. In all 
other branches of the service seniority is merely one of the 
many factors which the selecting officer may take into consid- 
eration, giving it such weight as he sees fit. Although no 
binding regulations or standards have been established, a very 
strong tradition has grown up in not a few governmental 
organizations, however, which awards to seniority a very heavy 
weight in determining promotion. This tradition of seniority 
in promotion perhaps flourishes most in those departments 
which have gained a reputation for stagnation and inefficient 
administration. It is hardly necessary to say that this condi- 
tion is almost wholly bad. Except in the few special cases 
that have been mentioned, and under the safeguards thus pro- 
vided, consideration should only be given to seniority when 
other determining factors are substantially equal. 

Efficiency Record. — When the attempt is made to reduce 
to order a promotion procedure previously wholly informal, 
resort is almost invariably had to "efficiency records." Ordi- 
narily a scheme of this kind takes the form of a periodic rating 
or appraisal, by superior officers, of all the employees under 
their jurisdiction, with respect to certain fixed elements, and 
in more or less closely prescribed terms. 

An administrative officer entrusted with complete discre- 



322 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tion in making selection for promotion, as has been said, may 
maintain an efficiency record and use it merely as a guide in 
exercising his unrestricted discretion; and it is perhaps gratui- 
tous to urge that every administrative officer entrusted with 
such discretion, or with discretion in personnel matters gen- 
erally, and having any considerable number of employees under 
supervision, should maintain such records as a check against 
lapses of memory and against the danger of exaggerating the 
importance of recent as against long time impressions. Such 
records also furnish the administrative officer a strong weapon 
for resisting improper pressure which may be brought to bear 
upon him on behalf of one or more of the persons eligible 
for promotion. 

The maintenance of such records, however, does not in 
anywise change the essential character of the system of promo- 
tion, which is still one of unrestricted discretion. Only when 
such records are given an official status, and are made definite 
and recognized factors in promotion, is the nature of the pro- 
motion system affected. The efficiency record then becomes 
a controlling restriction upon the discretion of the administra- 
tive officer. The extent of that restriction will be measured 
by the weight attached to such record in the final determination 
of the selection for promotion. 

If any form of restriction upon the discretion of the ad- 
ministrative officer in making selection for promotion is to be 
imposed, the use of efficiency records is obviously one that 
commends itself as most nearly approaching the result which 
would be obtained by the honest, unrestricted exercise of such 
discretion. Indeed the determination of promotion by effi- 
ciency records currently maintained is, in ideal theory, not a 
limitation on the discretion of the administrative officer in 
selection for promotion but is merely a guide to him. If the 
efficiency records are correctly designed and properly main- 
tained, the individual whom they indicate as properly in line 
for promotion should be the same as the one who would be 
selected by the unshackled judgment of the administrative 
superior when that judgment is based, as it should be, upon 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 323 

a full knowledge of all the facts of past performance of the sev- 
eral employees from among whom selection must be made. 
The record thus serves at once as a guide to the administra- 
tive officer, and as an impartial and irrefutable indication of 
the soundness of his choice. 

Needless to say, this beneficent theoretical function of the 
efficiency record cannot be realized fully in practice. The 
several obstacles, well nigh insurmountable, which stand in 
the way of even its imperfect realization will warrant full ex- 
amination. 

In considering the problem of devising proper efficiency 
records for the federal service for use in promotion, and of 
securing their proper maintenance, it is important at the out- 
set to take note of the notion which is very commonly held 
with reference to this subject, namely that uniformity, over 
the whole service, in methods of rating efificiency is desirable. 
In its report for 19 10 the Civil Service Commission stated ^ 
that "a uniform system of estimating and recording the rela- 
tive efficiency of employees" should be adopted, and state- 
ments of similar import are to be found in other reports of 
the Commission. If this means, as it seems to, that the same, 
or substantially the same, records should be employed through- 
out the service, embracing the same factors and terms of rat- 
ing uniformly weighted, it is difficult, in the light of the ex- 
perience with efificiency record systems in other jurisdictions, 
to agree with the Commission. 

So far as experience may be used with confidence to fur- 
nish any lessons regarding efficiency records, it has demon- 
strated the immense difficulty, if not the impossibility, of apply- 
ing to a large and varied service a uniform system. In most 
cases where an attempt has been made to cover a large service 
by a comprehensive system of efficiency records, the central 
agency, usually the civil service commission, has made the ef- 
fort to impose upon, or at least to hand down to, the whole 
service a ready made system. A single central body naturally 

* Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1910), p. 28. 



324 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

attempts in such an outgiving to apply a single uniform system 
to the whole service. The almost uniform failure of this pro- 
cedure seems conclusive proof that the method is wrong in 
principle. 

Failure indeed might have been predicted from the nature 
of the case. A system of efficiency records, like any other 
device of personnel administration, or of administration gen- 
erally, so far as possible, should be indigenous in the soil in 
which it is to flourish. Concretely what is needed in so large 
and varied a service as the federal government is not the im- 
position from above of a system elaborated in the closet, but 
the development, by the administrative officers directly con- 
cerned in each branch of the service, of a system of records 
that, in their judgment, meets their peculiar needs. In this 
development they should have the assistance of a central 
agency competent to criticize and suggest, and the benefit of co- 
operation and interchange of suggestion among the officers 
whose problems are similar or related; but the development, 
nevertheless, should be from the periphery of the service 
toward the center, rather than contrariwise. 

One reason why in some jurisdictions it has been thought 
necessary to extend a uniform system throughout the whole 
service is that transfers from one organization unit to an- 
other are rather freely permitted; and consequently it be- 
comes necessary, when an employee is transferred, to take into 
consideration in any subsequent promotions or other matters 
for which efficiency records are employed, the record made by 
him in the department from which he came. Obviously, unless 
that record was made in terms equivalent to or uniform with 
those employed in the records of the department to which he 
is transferred, confusion and difficulty result. Real as this 
consideration is, the number of cases involving transfer from 
one department to another in the federal service are probably 
not sufficiently numerous to warrant laying so much stress 
as has commonly been laid in public personnel systems on the 
necessity for uniformity in efficiency record systems as between 
departments. The case of the transferred employee may well 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 325 

be taken care of by re-valuation of his record in the terms 
of the record used in the department to which he is trans- 
ferred. In any case, the desirabiHty of uniformity for this 
purpose extends only to records designed for the same kind 
of work. Under no consideration can a clerk be transferred 
to the position of physician, or vice versa; hence, under no 
circumstances can a situation arise where it is necessary or 
even desirable that the records of the two employees be ex- 
pressed in like or equivalent terms. Failure to appreciate this 
simple fact has, been responsible for endless difficulty in the 
construction and maintenance of efficiency record systems. 

The report of the Reclassification Commission clearly rec- 
ognizes this principle. The system of records it recommends 
can, it declares,^ 

be as varied in character as the needs of the different organ- 
izations and lines of work require. Obviously no single sys- 
tem can be devised that will be applicable to the entire serv- 
ice. Moreover, in the present formative stage of efficiency 
rating systems it is highly desirable that considerable latitude 
be allowed for experimentation with different systems, even 
in the same or similar lines of work. 

The Commission does state, however: "that in order to 
secure uniformity and to give each organization the benefit 
of the experience of others, the general supervision of some 
central agency is necessary," and that "full authority to in- 
stall efficiency rating systems and to provide for their applica- 
tion in such ways as it may deem wise should be given to the 
Civil Service Commission, which would naturally seek the 
fullest cooperation of the various departments in the prosecu- 
tion of the work." This central authority, it is believed, should 
take the form of providing that an adequate system is estab- 
lished by each service rather than by prescribing the details 
of such system. Only when services performing substantially 
the same kinds of work fail to agree upon a uniform system 
should any compulsory power on the part of the Commission 
be exerted. 

* Keport of the Reclassification Cpmmi.ssion, Part I, p. 121, 



326 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

In examining into the values and limitations of the effici- 
ency record as a method of determining selection for promo- 
tion, it is essential to appreciate that no system of records can 
be substituted for human judgment; that where the relative 
merits of individuals as workers, or their relative fitness for 
advanced responsibility, can be determined only by the ex- 
ercise of judgment, a record cannot displace such judgment; 
it can merely record it. 

In certain employments it is possible indeed to establish 
and maintain current records of work accomplished, not only 
as to quantity but even as to quality, in terms of errors made, 
materials or forms spoiled, etc. It must be evident, however, 
without much elaboration, that the field in which this kind of 
record can be employed is very limited and, moreover, it is 
the one in which the least difficulty is experienced, even in the 
absence of records, in making promotions. The real difficulty 
in placing any check upon the discretion of an administrative 
officer occurs in those lines of work in which the value of an 
employee is not measurable in terms of quantity or any other 
element and consequently must be appraised on the basis of 
the administrative officer's judgment. 

In some discussions of efficiency records much has been 
made of the desirability of requiring that the judgment of 
the rating officer, in respect to employments of this character, 
be based upon "facts," as evidenced by "supporting records." 
When this principle is run to earth, however, it is found that 
the supporting records are almost invariably themselves mere 
expressions of opinion on the part of the rating officer. They 
may indeed be expressions of opinion of specific jobs or acts 
of the several employees, and to this extent they unquestionably 
furnish a more reliable basis for rating, and for reviewing 
ratings, than would mere general opinions covering the Iron- 
duct or performance of the several employees over a long 
period. It must be remembered, however, that even the selec- 
tion by the rating officer of certain specific acts or jobs rather 
than others, for praise or blame, itself represents an act 
of judgment of a very fundamental kind. In short, as to 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 327 

employments in which efficiency or capacity is not capable of 
objective measurement, and such employments obviously greatly 
preponderate in the federal service, an efficiency record, how- 
ever detailed, can in no wise reduce the element of personal 
judgment. It can and should, however, help to eliminate from 
that judgment all factors not properly entering into or influ- 
encing it. Slight as is the difficulty which most rating officers, 
like other men, find in rationalizing their predilections, the 
making of a detailed record compels periodically a whole- 
some self-examination and a searching of heart by the rating 
officer. 

The necessity of taking into account of the prospective 
capacity of an employee for promotion gives rise to another 
of the cardinal difficulties in the design and administration of 
efficiency records. So great is this difficulty indeed that in 
many systems designed to serve as the basis for promotion 
this factor is entirely left out of consideration, and it 
is presumably assumed that an employee who successfully 
carries on the duties of his present position possesses the 
degree and type of capacity requisite for a position of higher 
grade. How incorrect such an assumption is with re- 
spect to a great area of the service need hardly be pointed 
out. It might be thought that the difficulty could be overcome 
readily by providing in the record that the rating officer shall 
make a periodical estimate under this head, but experience 
proves that it is next to impossible to obtain from rating off- 
cers periodically a reasoned and considered judgment on a 
question necessarily remote in its application and in some 
cases not likely ever to be used. 

In many services and organization units promotions do 
not follow a single prescribed line; and hence an employee 
reported as suitable for promotion because of his fitness for 
one line might be much less suitable for promotion in another 
line which the rating officer might not have had in mind at 
the time he made his report. 

The considerations reviewed up to this point are applicable 
to any efficiency record to which a definite participation in 



328 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

determining selection for promotion is awarded, irrespective 
of its form. It becomes advisable here, however, to take cog- 
nizance of the two distinct types into which systems of effi- 
ciency records fall. In the first type, the rating officer is 
called upon simply to frame relative ratings for the several 
employees under his jurisdiction. The system may require him 
to record his opinion of every employee with respect to each 
of several selected elements or factors of efficiency. But the 
determination of the final rating lies wholly in his hands. A 
system of this kind is thus in no degree a restriction on his 
freedom in arranging the employees under his jurisdiction in 
any relative order he may desire. The record is merely the 
arbitrary formalized expression, in percentages or letters, of 
the uncontrolled judgment of the rating officer. 

For this reason, those responsible for the formulation of 
efficiency records have generally felt that the system should go 
further — that it should be such as to limit the freedom of 
the rating officer in determining the order of the several em- 
ployees. Consequently, these designers have provided systems 
in which the several factors or elements of efficiency, upon 
which rating is to be based, are expressly enumerated; the 
terms in which the ratings on each of them may be expressed 
are specified; the weight to be assigned each such factor or 
element, and the method of computing the final rating from 
the ratings on the several factors are minutely predetermined. 
The rank or order of the employees is then determined by 
the final rating. This system is open to serious objections. 
It is to be questioned whether any system of efficiency records, 
in which the final grades are obtained by averaging the rat- 
ings given on specific elements or factors, even though such 
factors have been weighted with specific reference tor each 
particular position or class of service, is to be generally rec- 
ommended. As applied to large groups of minor employees, 
particularly those performing routine or standardized opera- 
tions in which the elements of quality or self-direction are 
insignificant, and in which work results are readily measur- 
able in terms of quantity, such records are unquestionably prac- 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 329 

ticable; but even here the greatest care must be taken in the 
selection of factors, terms, and weights of rating, if the records 
are to reflect the actual relative values of the services of the 
several employees rather than a purely arbitrary appraisal of 
those values.^ 

For employees at all above this class, where any subtler 
elements of efficiency become involved, a mechanical system, 
if not wholly impracticable, is so fraught with difficulty that 
it should not be applied except for the most substantial of 
reasons — as to destroy a deeply rooted tradition and practice 
of political influence in promotion, or the belief in the ex- 
istence of such a practice.^ 

In summary it may be said then that an efficiency record 
system, which, by periodic percentages or other quantitative 
ratings attempts to determine mechanically the person who shall 
be selected for promotion, while theoretically attractive, pre- 
sents such great difficulties in actual operation that over most 
of the service it cannot be relied upon to select for promotion 
the employees actually most fit. The limit of practical appli- 
cation of efficiency records for most of the service is repre- 
sented by a system in which the rating officer is required to ex- 
press periodically, in percentages or other standard relative 
terms, his judgment of the relative competency of the employees 
under his judisdiction in their present duties and of their fit- 
ness for promotion to the next higher grade in the same class 
of work, or to the position immediately above in the direct and 
usual line of promotion, such records to be ordinarily control- 
ling upon the discretion of the administrative officer, when 

* For an illuminating illustration of the incorrect relative ratings of 
a group of employees of this type produced by a system in which the 
several factors and weights had not been selected wisely, see President's 
Commission on Economy and Efficiency, Report on the System of Effi- 
ciency Records in the National Bank Redemption Agency, 1913. 

^ Even then a system should be applied only after careful and cau- 
tious experimentation. It is not the least of the difficulties which sur- 
round the development of a system of efficiency records that once such 
a system has been applied, it is difficult to avoid making use of the rat- 
ings produced, however mistaken those ratings may prove the whole 
rating scheme to have been. Those who have received favorable ratings, 
albeit undeservingly, feel, not unnaturally, that they have a sort of 
vested interest in the use of such ratings in determining subsequent pro- 
motions. 



330 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

a promotion to the specific grade or position so contemplated 
is to be made. 

But even when restricted to this area of promotion, the 
extent to which the efficiency record is actually to control in 
determining selection must be limited. It should always be 
open to the administrative officer to obtain permission from 
the Civil Service Commission to set aside the records upon 
a proper showing that the promotion to be made, although 
nominally falling within the class of the promotion contem- 
plated by the system, does not actually so fall owing to pe- 
culiar conditions of the organizations or of the duties to be 
performed. Again, an administrative officer, after a minimum 
period in office, say a half-year, should be permitted, upon 
the approval of the Civil Service Commission, to disregard 
the ratings made by his predecessor in office, whose admin- 
istrative incapacity, as reflected in those judgments, he may 
indeed have been called in to supersede. Such a privilege 
would doubtless but rarely be invoked by an administrative 
officer, but its existence would seem to be indispensable if 
the officer is to be held responsible for the work under his 
jurisdiction.^ 

Even as thus qualified and limited, the system described, 
while capable of practical application over the greater portion 
of the service, in but relatively few branches of the service, 
will currently yield sufficiently valuable results to warrant the 
cost of its maintenance and the rigidity which it of necessity 
induces in the system of personnel administration. 

A question of great importance in devising a system of effi- 
ciency rating is that of the provision, if any, that shall be 

* In this connection mention should be made of a variation of the 
system of promotion by efficiency record which has been suggested. 
This proposal would require the appointing officer to promote the em- 
ployee having the best efficiency record unless he were able to present 
to the head of the department or other superior authority a satisfactory 
reason why, despite his better record, that employee should not be 
promoted and the promotion should go to an employee with an inferior 
efficiency record. A system of character is not properly a system of 
selection by efficiency record. It is a combination of such a system and 
a system of free discretion in superior administrative officers which is 
described in a subsequent section. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 331 

made for the right of employees who believe that their rat- 
ings are not fair, to appeal to a superior authority. In seek- 
ing to meet this point the designers of certain systems have 
provided for appellate tribunals having the power to reverse the 
ratings given by the administrative officer upon appeal by the 
employee. The character and implications of this system of 
appeal should be clearly understood. It should not be con- 
fused with the provision found in some systems by which the 
ratings made by the several administrative officers are reviewed 
and equalized by a committee or board before final promulga- 
tion. What is here referred to is the recognition of the right 
on the part of the employee who feels himself aggrieved by the 
rating given him, even after such reviewing and equalization 
by the administrative board, to appeal to a board which, at his 
complaint, will sit in judgment upon his administrative su- 
perior, and, if he succeeds, secure an amendment of the rating 
in his favor. 

That many of the most deserving employees hesistate to 
resort to a board of this kind in antagonism to their superior 
officers is the least of the objections to this procedure. Its 
radical defect is that it sets at naught the whole principle of 
administrative responsibility. For an administrative superior 
to be placed upon the defensive as against his employee, and 
for the employee to be the victor, and for the two to continue 
in the relation of employee and superior is a result to be 
avoided at all costs. In a correct personnel system, where the 
employee does not feel that he is receiving justice at the hands 
of his superior, machinery and procedure should be provided by 
which such employee may be transferred to another branch of 
the organization. In due course it will appear whether the 
employee is one who cannot get along with his superiors or 
whether the superior is one with whom his employees cannot co- 
operate, or who does not govern his employees with an equal 
hand in the matter of promotions, reassignments, and the like. 
But so long as a given employee remains subordinate to a 
given superior the employee should not be permitted, except 
for the very gravest of reasons, to go over the head of his 



332 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

superior officer and obtain an action which his superior has 
denied. 

The Reclassification Commission has recommended that 
authority be vested in the Civil Service Commission to review 
ratings and, if necessary, to withhold its approval. The Com- 
mission thus recommended : 

That the Civil Service Commission be authorized and di- 
rected to arrange for the installation of efficiency rating sys- 
tems in the various government establishments; that the ap- 
propriate administrative officers be required to rate all em- 
ployees under their direction in accordance with these systems 
and under such rules and regulations as the Civil Service 
Commission may prescribe, all such ratings to be forwarded to 
the Civil Service Commission for review and final approval, 
and that the ratings of individual employees be open to the 
appropriate administrative officers and to all other employees 
in the same class. 

It is very much to be questioned whether any such system 
of central control is either desirable or feasible. The trans- 
mission to the Civil Service Commission of all efficiency rat- 
ings would entail an enormous amount of work. Nor does 
it seem proper that it should have general authority to with- 
hold final approval in respect to such ratings. It would seem 
to be sufficient if the Commission had authority to make full 
investigation wherever it has reason to believe that an efficiency 
rating system was not being properly carried out in good 
faith and to report the result of its investigation to the superior 
departmental officer, to the President, and to Congress. 

Competitive Examination. — The value of competitive ex- 
aminations as a means of selection for promotion varies ac- 
cording to the number of employees who enter the competition. 
In systems of public personnel administration where the 
method of competitive examination is used as either the sole 
or a principal factor in making selections for promotion, 
the appointing officer is almost Invariably permitted to select 
for promotion one of the three employees rated highest on 
the examination. Where the number of employees competing 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 333 

is large, as in the case of the lower grades, this freedom of 
choice is of little significance, as even the selection of three 
from among the large number is a substantial, if not a com- 
plete, restriction upon the discretion of the appointing officer. 
As applied to the higher promotions, however, the option of 
selection of any of the three rated highest frequently gives 
the appointing officer virtually a free hand ; for, in these higher 
grades, it happens frequently that not more than three em- 
ployees can be considered, by any possibility, as eligible for 
the promotion in question. Under such circumstances a com- 
petitive promotion examination is more or less of a formality 
except in so far as it debars from selection one who is in- 
capable of obtaining even a qualifying rating. 

The advantages claimed for the system of competitive 
examination in the matter of determining promotions are 
that it requires a test of relative abilities, that It imposes 
a wholesome check upon the display of favoritism on the part 
of recommending or appointing officers, that It constitutes a 
safeguard against outside political or other pressure upon the 
appointing officer, and that it contributes to the general morale 
of the service through the apparent guarantee that it afifords 
of fairness in handling this important branch of personnel 
administration. 

No one can question the validity of these claims. Op- 
posed to them are, however, other considerations which, under 
certain conditions at least, may go far toward offsetting these 
advantages. The most obvious of these Is the limitations 
upon any examination system In determining the personal qual- 
ities, as distinguished from the attainments of the competing 
employees. In many cases the former may be of more im- 
portance than the latter. And these are qualifications which 
can be determined only by the exercise of personal judgment. 

It has been pointed out already that the system of com- 
petitive examination finds a far stronger justification In the 
field of recruitment than In selection from within. Even 
the warmest defenders of the rigidly competitive system, as ap- 
plied to the former field, do not maintain, however, that that 



334 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

system, always, or even nearly always, arranges the com- 
petitors on the eligible list in precisely the order demanded by 
their relative abilities and qualifications. All that is urged is 
that, as a whole, and over a considerable period, those selected 
are substantially as capable and meritorious as those who 
would be secured by a system involving a greater element 
of personal judgment on the part of the appointing officer; 
and that to the extent this is not true, the sacrifice entailed 
is outweighed by the exclusion of all possibility of the en- 
trance of political or other improper considerations. The 
system of selection for promotion, however, has to meet a 
far more exacting standard. On pain of impairing the morale 
of the working force, it must select accurately. In promo- 
tion, improper selection, except under the most severe pres- 
sure of political forces, cannot be condoned on the plea that 
the mechanical methods employed for selection were neces- 
sary to insure the exclusion of political considerations. 

The competitive examination is arbitrary. In the selection 
of subject matter for questions, and in framing them, there 
is obviously opportunity for accidentally favoring one candi- 
date or another in a matter which has no specific relation to 
the requirements of the work, or the position to which the 
promotion is to be made. Expert and careful examining 
service will tend to reduce this accidental element to a min- 
imum, but it cannot be eliminated entirely. The examination, 
moreover, is given on a single day or on two or three days; 
and at that particular time the several employees may not be 
relatively in their normal mental and physical condition. The 
final element of accident arises in fixing numerical ratings rep- 
resenting the examiner's appraisal of the questions and the 
value of the answers made by the several candidates. Such 
a process is inherently artificial. It becomes all the more so 
when the examination is divided into several subjects, each 
assigned an arbitrary weight by which the mark of the competi- 
tor Is to be multiplied In order to obtain his final average which 
determines his standing on the eligible list. 

These possibilities are present, of course, in any competi- 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 335 

tive examination; but, in a competitive examination for en- 
trance to the service, they are less important, since a candidate 
has no vested right to entrance and must take his chances with 
the process of selection for entrance which the best interests 
of the service demand. In the case of an employee already in 
the service, however, it is wholly unjustifiable to require him 
to take chances with his chief reward of service merely in order 
to satisfy some extraneous requirement of the personnel sys- 
tem. 

In summary, it may be said that the method of competitive 
examination may be used profitably where large numbers of 
subordinate employees are all eligible for a promotion to a 
higher grade, itself minor. ^ Even in such a case, however, 
selection by competitive examination is, at best, unreliable and 
should certainly be qualified, to some extent, by the considera- 
tion of efficiency records. In the more important promotions, 
however, a written competitive examination, consisting of set 
questions, is wholly unsuitable. To make an important promo- 
tion depend primarily, or even largely, upon the more or less 
accidental results of a written examination on a set paper is to 
introduce into the administration of the personnel system an 
element of hazard and capriciousness unjust alike to the effi- 
cient employee and to the sincere administrative officer. 

This conclusion is reached in the face of respectable 
authority. In 1910 a special committee appointed by the 
National Civil Service Reform League reported in favor of the 
general application of promotion examinations in the federal 
service. The substance of the committee's report is contained 
in the following paragraphs : ^ 

We have now considered various known methods of pro- 
motion and come to the question of the practical application 
of a promotion system to conditions existing in the federal 
service. Of these methods "free promotion" must be re- 

* Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1910), p. 27, "In promotion from one grade to another it is believed 
that examinations now prescribed by the rules may profitably be made 
competitive where there is a sufficient number of employees to justify it." 

^Proceedings, National Civil Service Reform League, 1910, pp. 84 
and 85. 



336 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

jected, as it has been already shown to be unsuited to these 
conditions. Seniority, efficiency records, and competitive ex- 
amination all have their value as elements which should enter 
into consideration in making promotions. The question would 
seem to be how they can best be combined? 

In our opinion seniority should be made a determining 
factor in promotion only when the application of other tests 
of efficiency show that two candidates are practically equal. 

Efficiency records as they do not bear directly on the main 
question — the ability to perform the duties of a higher position 
— should not be given a preponderating weight. 

Competitive examination, as going most directly to the root 
of the matter and providing an impartial test of ability to per- 
form the duties of a higher position, should be given at least 
a weight of 50 per cent. 

Despite the distinguished personnel of this committee ^ it 
is believed that few who have had practical experience with the 
use of competitive examinations as the means of selecting for 
promotion will find themselves in accord with the committee. 
That competitive examination would constitute, of course, a 
well nigh ideal method of selection for promotion if it actually 
succeeded in selecting the person best qualified for, or most 
deserving of, the promotion, is self-evident. The essential 
question, which the committee completely escaped by assuming 
an affirmative answer, is whether it is at all practicable to de- 
vise for any of the more difficult promotions, particularly those 
involving even minor administrative responsibilities, a type of 
competitive examination which will actually be effective. 

The Reclassification Commission has likewise gone on 
record as favoring the employment of competitive examination 
in selection for promotion. After discussing measures looking 
to the enlargement of the opportunity for advancement in 
the federal service, the Commission says : ^ "Since the only 
fair method of determining who are best qualified is by ex- 
amination, appointment to the higher classes should be made 
only as the result of competitive examination, open to all those 

* Charles W. Eliot, Chairman, Joseph P. Cotton, Jr., Richard H. 
Dana, William Dudley Foulke, and Elliott H. Goodwin. 
'Report, Part I, p. 124. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 337 

of the service who are quahfied under the class specifications." 
Apparently fearful, however, that exception would be taken 
to the use of competitive examinations because of the wide- 
spread belief in their impracticability, the Commission goes 
on to say: "Such examinations need not, of course, be 
academic in character, but may be based on actual accomplish- 
ment and demonstrated ability for the work of the higher 
class." Just what the Commission means by this is not clear. 
"Actual accomplishment" cannot be tested by examination. 
Any opinion on this head must be based upon records of past 
performance; and to the extent that these are employed the 
method of selection is not that of competitive examination but 
of the efficiency record. Again, "demonstrated ability for 
the work of the higher class," that is, for the position to 
which the promotion is to be made, cannot be tested in the 
great majority of cases except by actual trial of the employee, 
which is, of course, inconsistent with the proposal of a com- 
petitive examination, besides being wholly impracticable un- 
der ordinary conditions. 

Some years ago when promotion regulations were first 
applied to the Custom House service in New York City, 
competitive examination was employed in determining promo- 
tion from one clerical grade to another. In 1909, however, 
the use of the competitive examination for this purpose was 
abandoned, and a system of efficiency records instituted. Un- 
fortunately there is no official statement available as to why 
this step was taken. The report of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion merely states that it was taken "better to meet existing 
conditions." ^ 

Combination of Efficiency Records, Competitive Examina- 
tion, and Seniority. — It remains to consider to what extent the 
combination of any or all of the three methods of restriction 
upon the discretion of administrative officers, just reviewed, 
may offer advantages not found in the use of any one of these 
methods singly. 

* Twenty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion ( 1909) , p. 29. 



338 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Since the opinion has been expressed that both the meth- 
ods of efficiency record and of competitive examination are un- 
reliable in their operation except within restricted areas of 
the service, it is not believed that any greater reliability can 
be secured by combining them in an arbitrary manner. In 
those parts of the service, however, in which either would 
properly be applicable singly, their combination, with the 
proper assignment of weight to each, is desirable. On the one 
hand, the examination tests the capacity of the employee for 
performing the duties of the higher position, in a way that is 
not done by efficiency records; while, on the other hand, the 
record serves to prevent a brilliant, but not altogether steady- 
going, employee from obtaining promotion merely through a 
good examination. 

In view of the fact that the seniority factor furnishes so 
slight a test of merit, little use should be made of it, except as 
between two employees whose records or examinations, or both, 
are substantially equal. 

General Summary of Formal Promotion Methods. — In the 
foregoing review of formal promotion methods the conclusion 
has been reached that the effective use of these methods, 
either singly or in combination, is limited to restricted areas 
of service, and more particularly to the lower grades; and 
that, except as to these areas, their limitations are such as 
to make their employment unwarranted as controlling factors 
both from the standpoint of administrative efficiency and that 
of doing justice to the capable employee. To state this in an- 
other way, the general conclusion is that, valuable as mechanical 
or formal methods of selection may be as aids to the personal 
judgment of those responsible for taking action, they should 
not be erected into substitutes for the exercise of such judg- 
ment. 

Substantially this conclusion has been reached by one of 
the ablest administrators who has occupied a Cabinet position 
in recent years. In his report for 1910, the Secretary of Com- 
merce and Labor, Charles Nagel, had this to say on the sub- 
ject of promotion : 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 339 

Promotion of employees in the Government service con- 
stitutes one of the most difficult questions presented in the 
actual everyday administration of departmental affairs, al- 
though practically there is but little restriction by the civil 
service rules on this subject. Promotion without examination 
to a grade for which the entrance tests are higher or essentially 
different is prohibited, but for the great bulk of promotions 
which are usually within a grade, the promoting officer is free 
to exercise his discretion. That difficulties attend the promul- 
gation of practical regulations to govern promotions is shown 
by the several ineffectual attempts to enforce rules which have 
been adopted, and by the significant fact that the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission, which seems to be particularly charged under 
the civil service law with the duty of formulating promotion 
regulations, has not been able after years of study to present 
anything workable and effective. The ideal system is one in 
which political, personal, and social influences are entirely 
eliminated, thereby insuring promotion solely on merit; and 
the purpose of any system should be to guide in determining 
who of a number of employees excels in special qualifications 
or general efficiency. A scholastic examination does not ap- 
pear to be a means to this desirable end. It is well enough' 
to provide a scholastic test for entrance to the service, but the 
conditions within the service call for an entirely different 
test for promotion. Employees work under the direction and 
observation of chiefs of bureaus and divisions; their capacity, 
efficiency, and resourcefulness are observed and judged by 
them; and in the final analysis their rights to advancement 
should be wholly determined by the opinions of these super- 
vising officials, provided, always, that such opinions are judi- 
cious, well informed, and conscientiously reached. 

During the spring and summer of 1909, when this depart- 
ment instituted a thorough inquiry into the efficiency of its 
personnel, it was demonstrated that as an aid to arriving at a 
just estimate of the merits of employees for promotion, chiefs 
of bureaus should be required to report from time to time on 
the efficiency of all under their charge. These reports should 
bear upon the quantity and quality of work done by employees 
as well as the interest manifested in it, and, upon the theory 
that the government is entitled to a day's work for a day's pay, 
should show whether the employees are actually earning their 
salaries. After this information has been procured, recom- 
mendations for promotion from bureau chiefs should be con- 



340 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

sidered in connection with the efficiency ratings previously sub- 
mitted, and if it should appear that employees not having the 
highest ratings are recommended for advancement the bureau 
officers should be called upon for an explanation. Under such 
a system there is no reason why promotions should not be 
justly made. It is barely possible that there may be an occa- 
sional instance in which an employee may be recommended by 
a chief of bureau on account of some personal or political in- 
fluence, but in practically all cases the report and recommenda- 
tion of the chief are based upon merit and are just as little 
open to criticism as they would be under a more elaborate sys- 
tem. It is not believed that any sort of mechanical and self- 
operative method of promotion could be devised, or any set 
rules established, which could possibly take the place of the 
discretion, fairness, and knowledge of the chief of a bureau.^ 

The position of the Reclassification Commission on this 
matter has been commented on already. That body reported 
rather unequivocally in favor of the use of promotion exami- 
nation. As already indicated, however, the vagueness of its 
recommendations on this head is such as to greatly impair 
its weight and value. 

The present views of the Civil Service Commission on 
this subject are not available in public form. The latest 
published expression of opinion by the Commission is found 
in its Twenty-seventh Report, dated 191 1. In that report 
is found the following on the question of formal promotion 
methods : 

The application of practical regulations to govern promo- 
tions has been found difficult, and little progress has been 
made in that regard. Under the civil service rules non-com- 
petitive examinations are held to test fitness of employees 
recommended for promotion to positions for which the en- 
trance tests are different from those of the positions which 
they hold, and in certain services promotion regulations pro- 
viding for competitive examinations from grade to grade are 
in force. Several of the departments also have adopted sys- 
tems of limited ajpplication for the keeping of efficiency records 

^ Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Com- 
mission (1910), p. 138. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 341 

of employees and for promotion in accordance therewith. In 
some cases these systems have been discontinued owing to lack 
of satisfactory results. In others, where conditions are more 
favorable, they are still in force. . . . 

There are at least four bases or methods of making pro- 
motions. First, that of free selection by the promoting of- 
ficer. This is said to work well in private business, where 
the motive of profit enters; in the public service it has been 
tried, and in recent years has given better results than for- 
merly from the standpoint of administrative efficiency. An- 
other method is that of promotion by seniority, which has 
slight relation to efficiency and which should be used only as 
a means of discriminating among candidates whose other quali- 
fications are equal. A third method is that of competitive ex- 
amination. It has been advanced that under this method the 
employees are placed on an equal footing, as the personal equa- 
tion is eliminated and impartial tests are applied. This method 
has been tried in the past to some extent and afterwards aban- 
doned for promotions from class to class within a grade, ap- 
parently because of the belief that for such promotions the 
value of employees could be more accurately and fairly meas- 
ured from daily observation of their actual work. In promo- 
tion from one grade to another it is believed that examinations 
now prescribed by the rules may profitably be made competi- 
tive where there is a sufficient number of employees |;o jus- 
tify it. A fourth method, that of promotion on records of 
efficiency, has too rarely been found to work satisfactorily, 
as the ratings are likely to become perfunctory and to lack 
relativity and uniformity unless the system is applied by a 
supervisory body. 

While each method has its supporters, a system combin- 
ing seniority, efficiency ratings, and competitive examinations 
has also its advocates. 

The commission favors the making of promotions com- 
petitively on the basis of efficiency, ascertained by a uniform 
and impartial mode of procedure applicable to all departments. 

A uniform system of estimating and recording the relative 
efficiency of employees could then be adopted and more ef- 
fectively applied for all bureaus and offices in all departments. 
This can best be accomplished by the aid of an independent 
commission or body, such as the Civil Service Commission. 
To secure uniform methods of procedure and results in all 
bureaus and departments, it would be well for the commission 



342 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

to prescribe the necessary forms for recording efficiency ratings 
and to have some part in coordinating and harmonizing the 
ratings, such as representation on a board of review and ap- 
peals. A true record of relative efficiency, fairly estimated, 
and available to the heads of departments and the Civil Service 
Commission, would undoubtedly greatly aid in maintaining 
efficiency and economy in the service.^ 

The fact that the conclusions reached regarding the ap- 
plicability of the several formal methods of selecting employees 
for promotion are more or less of a negative character make 
it desirable to discover, if possible, some other means by which, 
while leaving to the appointing officers due discretion, safe- 
guards against an improper use of this power may be set up. 

It is believed that the key to the problem lies, not in sub- 
stituting mechanical methods for free discretion, but rather 
in so guarding the exercise of free discretion that it may be 
employed without fear of the injection of political or personal 
favoritism. This can be accomplished by the development of 
machinery and organized procedure for exercising discretion 
in promotion as against entrusting that discretion wholly to a 
single administrative officer. In each service, bureau, or other 
organization unit, there should be developed a committee 
of administrative officers charged with responsibility for mak- 
ing recommendations in respect to all selections for promotion. 
Provision should be made for developing and furnishing to 
this committee or body complete information regarding the 
character of work performed by and the qualifications for 
promotion of all employees. The basic element in the pro- 
vision of this information should be, of course, a system of 
efficiency or service records currently maintained. This record 
should be a current record of all facts bearing on the em- 
ployee's service. It should be made periodically; but entries 
may also be made from time to time as special occasion there- 
for arises. It should contain expressions of opinion as well 
as statements of fact. These may be expressed in any terms 

* Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Com« 
mission (1910), pp. 26, 27, and 28. 



REASSIGNMENT AND PROMOTION 343 

which may seem best to the administrative officer whose own 
convenience will dictate, of course, the desirability of express- 
ing all records so far as possible in standard terms. These 
periodic records should be supplemented by a full statement, 
submitted by the proper administrative officer at the time 
of the proposed promotion, explaining with particularity any 
reason for a variation from what would normally be expected 
from the face of the efficiency records previously entered. It 
should also be within the power of this committee or board 
to summon before it for interview, or even for written test, if 
it thinks such test appropriate, all the candidates or such of 
them as it may deem desirable. With all these various sources 
of information at its disposal, it is believed that a committee 
animated by a desire to act fairly could effect, in virtually every 
case, a recommendation consonant with the best interests of 
the service from the standpoint both of administrative effi- 
ciency and of the morale of the service; and that its judgment, 
in almost every case, would coincide with that of the adminis- 
trative officer immediately concerned. 

A question of . no little importance in providing for such 
promotional boards is whether or not representation on such 
boards should be given to the central personnel agency, the 
Civil Service Commission. If the policy advocated in this 
volume of increasing greatly the responsibility of the Civil 
Service Commission for seeing that proper personnel methods 
are employed by the several departments and services is 
adopted, it is believed that substantial benefit would result 
from at least giving to the Commission the right, if it so de- 
sired, of having a representative participate in the board pro- 
ceedings. 

Experience elsewhere, and particularly in the city of New 
York, in connection with the efficiency record installation at- 
tempted there in the years 1916-1917, has demonstrated that 
results of the highest character may be secured by the direct 
participation of a representative of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion in departmental personnel boards, provided, of course, 
such representative is of a sufficiently high caliber. The mere 



344 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

presence of such a representative on such a board insures at 
once that the proceedings will be more formal and business- 
like in character than they frequently are when confined to 
officers of the department or bureau known to one another. 
It insures, furthermore, that no action will be taken unless 
full explanation of the reason for such action is presented to 
the board. It places obvious difficulties in the way of any 
attempt to award a promotion to a political or personal favor- 
ite. When it is appreciated by the board that it is supposed 
to be guided in its determinations largely, if not almost ex- 
clusively, by the records before it, including, as already sug- 
gested, the statements of the eligible employees themselves, all 
of which are open for the examination of the representative of 
the Civil Service Commission as fully as to the members of 
the board, and when it is further appreciated that this repre- 
sentative has the power to lay before the Commission the facts 
in any case where the action of the board seems to him arbi- 
trary and governed by considerations other than those which 
appear on the record, his presence becomes a force far more 
potent for the observance of merit principles in promotion than 
can any mechanical method whatsoever. 



CHAPTER X 

RECRUITMENT METHODS; SOME BASIC ASPECTS 

Of the several distinct systems of recruitment now in 
force, springing from the varying provisions of the law and 
rules which were reviewed in an earlier chapter, that estab- 
lished under the civil service law is, of course, far the most 
important; and the next chapter is devoted wholly to its 
detailed discussion. The succeeding chapter takes up simi- 
larly the other existing formal systems oi recruitment — 
those for recruiting laborers, presidential postmasters, mem- 
bers of the foreign service, and the medical corps of the Pub- 
lic Health Service. Certain aspects of the recruitment prob- 
lem are, however, of so basic a character that it seems de- 
sirable to consider them in relation to all these several re- 
cruitment systems at the outset. To these basic aspects the 
present chapter is devoted. 

Emphasis upon Education. — A question directly related 
to the problem of selection is that of the emphasis which 
should be placed upon the possession by the entrant to the serv- 
ice of educational attainments, whether general or technical, 
superior to those strictly required for the performance of the 
duties to which he is to be appointed. H the purpose is pri- 
marily to secure a recruit who will be able within a reasonable 
time to master the specialized duties to which he is to be as- 
signed immediately upon entrance, little attention need be paid 
to any education which is not directly and definitely applicable 
to those duties. H, on the other hand, the recruit is regarded, 
not merely as an agency for performing a particular immedi- 
ate task, but also as potential material for advancement to 
higher levels of the service, the education of the recruit, in so 

345 



346 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

far as superior education is regarded as increasing his poten- 
tial value, must be given proper consideration. 

In a preceding chapter it was urged that much could be 
done in the federal service, and in personnel systems gen- 
erally, by encouraging and facilitating the acquisition of fur- 
ther education by those already in the service. To the extent 
that this may successfully be done the emphasis upon educa- 
tion in recruitment, of course, may be lessened. But there 
will always be fields in which it will be unsafe to rely solely, 
or even chiefly, upon the further education of the personnel 
already in the service. In these fields it will always be neces- 
sary to give attention to the possession of educational attain- 
ments by a proportion at least of those recruited. As has 
been indicated already, this is essentially the theory under- 
lying the British system of selections for those clerical posi- 
tions which lead into administrative work. The vice of the 
British system consists in its awarding to those who enter at 
the higher level, under this theory, a virtual monopoly of all 
desirable promotion. With this discriminatory feature elimi- 
nated and advancement to the higher posts opened alike to all 
in the service possessing the requisite qualifications regardless 
of the level at which they entered, there is nothing in the sys- 
tem which is not wholly consistent with the democratic tradi- 
tion of American personnel practice. 

At most points in the federal service up to the present time 
little emphasis has been laid upon the educational attainments 
of those in the lower grades as evidencing potential capacity 
for advancement; and there is indeed perhaps no instance in 
the service in which entrance at an advanced level is permitted 
to those possessing superiority merely in educational attain- 
ments. On the other hand, as already indicated, no general 
provision has been made by the service for the educational 
advancement of those already in the service. So far as current 
recruitment methods represent at all the outworking of a 
theory rather than the merely accidental development of ad- 
ministrative tradition, they may be said to afford no recogni- 
tion whatever of the value of general education as increas- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 347 

ing the potential value of the employee for advanced responsi- 
bility. 

A possible exception to this statement is perhaps to be 
made in the case of the foreign service. Here in the clerical 
levels the attempt is made at certain points to obtain a type of 
recruit possessing educational attainments considerably su- 
perior to what is required for the routine clerical work of the 
consular and diplomatic establishments, with the purpose of 
developing from the recruits so obtained material for advance- 
ment to the positions of consul and diplomatic secretary and 
thence by promotion through the several grades to the posts of 
consul general and perhaps even of chief of mission. 

It need hardly be said that whatever value may be at- 
tributed to general education on the score of its broadening 
influence must be awarded in similar measure to a varied busi- 
ness or professional experience, provided, of course, that the 
variety does not spring from consistent failure in a succession 
of attempted fields. The difficulty, however, of reducing the 
value of experience of this type to any standard measure makes 
it impracticable to give it much consideration in framing re- 
cruitment policies. 

Requirement o£ Specialized Knowledge and Experience. 
— Closely related to the question of the educational attainments 
to be required of the candidate for admission to the service is 
the question of the extent to which, in recruitment, the at- 
tempt should be made to secure for the lowest grades persons 
already equipped to do the work to which they will be assigned 
rather than to train persons wholly without previous experi- 
ence in that work. In considering this question clear distinc- 
tion must be drawn between those classes of work which are 
found in private employment as well as in the federal service, 
and those which are peculiar to the government service. 

In the first class of employments — those found also in 
private employment — there are again two fairly distinct types 
of cases. In the one there are available, usually in abundance, 
both public and private educational institutions giving the 
preliminary instruction usually thought necessary prior to the 



348 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

taking up of gainful employment in that occupation. In these 
cases the government is not itself required to attempt to offer 
instruction. In general the government would probably find 
it less economical to do so than to leave such training to es- 
tablished channels. Perhaps the only exception to this state- 
ment is to be found in those cases in which it is desired to en- 
courage persons already in the service to equip themselves fur- 
ther educationally and where the working hours of the em- 
ployees do not permit them to take advantage of existing edu- 
cational facilities. In the larger centers, however, it will be 
found almost invariably that where any appreciable demand 
exists, the facilities, whether public or private, will be made 
available at suitable hours by those engaged in furnishing 
them. 

In some employments, however, found alike in the business 
world and in the government service, it is not customary for 
the novice to pursue any formal course of instruction prior 
to taking up work, but to enter directly upon an apprentice- 
ship. Whether in these employments the government shall 
recognize any responsibility for training apprentices or shall 
rely wholly upon the supply of persons who have occupied 
their apprenticeship in private establishments, is a question in- 
volving no considerations of principle. It is a matter to be 
decided with respect to each class of work solely on the basis 
of current expediency as determined by the relative supply of 
available material which can be drawn from any industry or 
commerce. The present practice of the service in this matter 
corresponds closely with this view. 

With respect to those employments which are peculiar to 
the government service, the situation is quite different and pre- 
sents a problem which is of no little importance as affecting 
the caliber of material recruited. As an example of such 
employment may be cited that of Inspector of Immigration. 
The duties of the Inspector of Immigration are to obtain from 
the immigrant a record of his history and the facts required 
in the application of the laws governing the exclusion of im- 
migrants and to determine whether these facts present a case 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 349 

for exclusion. The performance of these duties obviously 
requires, in addition to the general qualifications of intelli- 
gence, alertness, sympathy, and the like, a detailed knowledge 
of the immigration laws. Such a detailed knowledge can be 
acquired, of course, by any one of requisite intelligence by a 
sufficiently prolonged and concentrated study of the laws and 
the published and administrative and judicial decisions there- 
under. There is nothing inherently unreasonable, therefore, 
in the requirement that the persons applying for the position 
of immigrant inspector shall make themselves thoroughly fa- 
miliar with the pertinent laws and decisions. 

From the standpoint of securing the widest possible choice 
of available material for this position, however, the setting 
of this requirement is clearly ill-advised. From among all 
those who may be qualified by education, personality, and 
natural bent for this type of position, this requirement auto- 
matically confines selection to those who, for whatever reason, 
have been so situated as to have been able to make the required 
study of the laws and decisions, and among these again it 
gives a heavy advantage to persons who have been able to 
pursue this study most diligently and thoroughly. Obviously 
it may happen that among those who, for whatever reason, 
have had insufficient opportunity to study the laws and de- 
cisions, or having had the opportunity, have been unwilling 
to do so on the mere chance of a possible appointment to the 
position at some uncertain time in the future, there may be 
persons who would be in every essential respect better ma- 
terial for the position in question than those who have pur- 
sued the requisite study. 

The correct policy in such a case as this would seem un- 
questionably to neglect virtually altogether the specific tech- 
nical information require'd of the incumbent after appoint- 
ment and to confine the examination or whatever other basis 
of selection may be employed to general qualifications, relying 
with confidence on the capacity of the recruit when appointed 
to acquire in a minimum time, and with a far more practical 
interest and bent, the technical and internal details. 



350 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

In the absence of any clear-cut policy, it is, of course, dif- 
ficult to state in general terms the extent to which one or the 
other method is actually employed at the present time in the 
competitive classified service. If a general statement must be 
made, however, it seems safe to say that the present practice 
of the Civil Service Commission too often requires of appli- 
cants specialized and detailed knowledge of matters familiar- 
ity with which can be acquired only with great difficulty if at 
all outside the service itself. 

In the examinations which are required for admission to 
the diplomatic and consular services a candidate is expected to 
demonstrate familiarity with international, maritime, and com- 
mercial law; political and commercial geography; modern lan- 
guages ; natural, industrial, and commercial resources of the 
United States; American history and government; and the 
modern history of foreign countries. 

In examinations for presidential postmasterships, it is in- 
teresting to note, the Civil Service Commisison has required 
no familiarity with methods of postal business. In a sense 
any such requirement would have been at odds with the whole 
theory of the examination, which calls for open competition 
instead of promotion from within the postal service. Never- 
theless, it would be no less logical to require familiarity with 
postal methods in this examination than to require a knowl- 
edge of the details of federal law and practice in a number of 
open competitive examinations for the competitive classified 
service. 

One result of the requirement on the part of applicants 
for entrance of specialized knowledge which cannot be obtained 
through ordinary courses of instruction or other experience 
in private employment is the development of the so-called 
"cramming" schools which, upon the announcement of an ex- 
amination by the Civil Service Commission, or upon the proba- 
bility that such an examination is to be announced (which 
probability, it need hardly be said, is usually advertised and 
exaggerated by these schools upon the slightest provocation) 
offer courses of instruction directly preparatory for the ex- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 3S1 

amination. Some of these schools use the correspondence 
method, but ordinary schools holding regular classes are to 
be found in the large cities. It might be thought that these 
schools serve a valuable purpose in providing the pros- 
pective candidate with the knowledge which he will be re- 
quired to demonstrate on the examination and which, if ap- 
pointed, he will use in the performance of his duties. Any 
one who is familiar, however, with the character of the in- 
struction given at these schools and the caliber of their student 
body will question this. The attempt to forecast from a study 
of previous examinations and a knowledge of the workings 
of the official mind the questions which are likely to be asked 
on the examination is an activity which, however valuable 
to the intending competitor, is worthless from the standpoint 
of the service. 

Training for Entrance. — A phase of this question which 
has been more or less discussed in recent years, is that of the 
need of training for the public service. This discussion runs 
back about a decade. It was particularly animated during 
the years 191 3 and 1914. In the former year a committee 
of the American Political Science Association was appointed 
to investigate the possibilities of supplying in the universities 
training which might better fit those for the public service. 
The committee reported in favor of the establishment of 
certain courses for this purpose,^ to be supplemented by field 
work. In 1914 a conference was held under the auspices 
of the Committee on "Universities and the Public Service." 
Following upon this discussional phase of the matter, courses 
in public administration were established in several universi- 
ties, and Columbia University entered into an alliance with the 
training school for public service which had been established 
in connection with the New York Bureau of Municipal Re- 
search. 

Examination of the published discussions of this theme 
will disclose that they are almost without exception character- 

* Report of the Committee on Training for the Public Service of the 
American Political Science Association, Madison, Wisconsin, 1913. 



352 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ized by a vagueness as to the specific types of positions for 
which training would be of value. Presumably this is to be 
explained by the fact that a fairly diligent study has failed 
to reveal clearly the existence of such positions on any signifi- 
cant scale. The real difficulty seems to be that underlying 
most of this discussion is to be found the fallacious assump- 
tion that the public service is in some way a distinct profession 
or vocation, when the fact of the matter obviously is that it 
is merely a distinct area of employment in which are found 
many of the trades, professions, and callings of the business 
or professional world, and but few which are not there to be 
found — perhaps none of which the close analogy is not 
there to be found. And with respect to not a few professions 
and vocations it will be discovered that the problems encoun- 
tered and the qualifications essential do not differ more be- 
tween the public service and any particular branch of industry 
than between that branch and some other. 

One single class of employees, too inconsiderable in num- 
ber, however, to have any importance for the present discus- 
sion, may be regarded as actually receiving training through 
the type of instruction above outlined. In every large public 
service, and perhaps particularly in municipalities, a Hmited 
number of persons variously designated as examiners and in- 
vestigators are needed whose function it is to make investi- 
gations of various phases of governmental activity for the 
purposes of financial control, reorganization, personnel ad- 
ministration, or for other administrative purposes associated 
with the central control. While it is essential that technical 
advice and supervision be always present, it is often found 
practicable in stafifs of this kind to put to excellent use per- 
sons of native capacity and alertness who do not, and in the 
nature of the case cannot, possess technical knowledge of each 
\ of the varied branches of administration which the shifting 
requirements of the central agency make it necessary for them 
to investigate. It is frequently possible to find excellent ma- 
terial for this type of service among those in the clerical grades 
who have entered without any advanced educational prepara- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 353 

tion and who have acquired through long experience a wide 
familiarity with the operations of the service. But it is also 
possible and frequently desirable to recruit these staffs from 
among persons of good general education but without exten- 
sive experience in the service. For persons of this type, 
specialized courses in public administration, especially when 
allied with "field work," are undoubtedly of value as a prep- 
aration; but the demand for this type of service is in any 
case too small to warrant the provision of any extensive facili- 
ties for the purpose or to be any real element in a program 
of training for the public service, and in large services it will 
generally be found both practicable and expedient to divide 
this examining work functionally, so that it is done by persons 
who are themselves proficient specialists in the vocations or 
professions involved. 

Reviewing these considerations in the light of the needs 
of the federal service it may be said with confidence that there 
exists at present substantially no demand for recruits to the 
federal service the supply of which could be or is being facili- 
tated by the provision of any special courses of training of 
the character here under discussion. 

Maximum Age Limits. — Another basic aspect of the re- 
cruitment problem which is closely related to the question of 
restricting selection for the higher levels to those already in 
the service, is that of maximum age limits for entrance to the 
service. This question, of course, has reference chiefly to the 
positions of the lower grades, and of a more or less unspecial- 
ized character. In the higher grades, where extensive train- 
ing and experience are required, if recruitment from without 
the service is resorted to, the appointee may be expected to be 
already fairly advanced in life; and here the desirability of fix- 
ing a maximum age limit will be merely to prevent the en- 
trance of one so old as to be below a reasonable standard of 
productive efficiency or of adaptability. In the lower grades, 
however, the question presents itself as one of basic principle. 

The imposition for these grades, of a low maximum age 
limit, such as the twenty-year limit for second division clerks, 



354 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

and the twenty- four-year limit for first division clerks, as 
fixed in the British system, is often urged. The argument is 
that the aim should be to encourage young men definitely to 
adopt the service early in life as a permanent career. Mani- 
festly such an argument has no validity except in respect to 
the upper, really worth while positions. 

A danger, of course, exists that if no moderately low maxi- 
mum age limit is established for the subordinate positions, 
the service may become the refuge of incompetents of middle 
age or even of advanced years who have failed to establish 
themselves in private life. If, however, the entrance gate be 
strictly guarded as regards physical as well as mental quali- 
fications, there is no reason why an incompetent, of whatever 
age, should gain a permanent foothold in the service. To 
assume that all who find a minor post in the government serv- 
ice attractive even in middle life are necessarily incompetent 
would be a grievous error and the government, as employer, 
should not take so arbitrary a position except for the best of 
reasons. 

If extensive training and experience in the service is re- 
quired before the maximum value of the recruit to the service 
is attained, the recruitment of persons well on in years is ob- 
jectionable on the ground that the cost to the service of the 
period of apprenticeship, so to speak, is distributed over a 
relatively brief prospective period of service. The examin- 
ing corps of the Patent Office is a case in point. The new 
examiner must spend a considerable period in acquiring a mas- 
tery of the special procedure and methods involved in his 
work ; and during that period his services are ordinarily worth 
less than their cost. In theory, therefore, recruitment should 
be confined to persons young enough to warrant the expecta- 
tion of a long period of service. 

In sum, the policy to be followed by the federal service 
would seem to be one of compromise. Recruitment should 
be restricted to those in early life so far as practicable, but 
the definition of what is to be regarded as early life should 
be liberally drawn, probably in the neighborhood of 30 years. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 355 

and perhaps running up to 35. The present policy of the 
service in the permanent branches accords fairly well with the 
policy recommended, but on the whole the tendency is to 
set the maximum age limit at a considerably higher figure 
than here suggested. 

Recruitment of Women. — The question of the admission 
of women into the service has remained up to the present 
time almost solely in the hands of the administrative officers 
concerned. With reference to "clerkships" an act passed in 
1870, and still in force, definitely vests this discretion in the 
heads of departments.^ A like discretion is extended over the 
remainder of the competitive classified service by the civil 
service rules which provide (Rule VII, Section i, a) that in 
certifying the names of eligibles to appointing officers "cer- 
tifications shall be made without regard to sex unless sex is 
specified in the request," thus permitting the appointing of- 
ficer, by specifying in his request for certification, to bar ap- 
pointment to either sex, a privilege commonly used, of course^ 
to bar women rather than men, though with the increasing 
employment of women in clerical and stenographic work in 
the service, the situation is probably by the way of becoming 
reversed. In the foreign service the regulations for entrance 
to the several branches promulgated by the President do not 
in terms restrict entrance to men, but such is undoubtedly their 
intent, and a woman applicant, should one present herself, 
would undoubtedly be denied designation to the examination. 
A similar situation exists with reference to the presidential 
postmasterships, but the system here being competitive, it is 
difficult to see how under existing orders and regulations a 
woman otherwise qualified could be denied the right to com- 
pete. In the labor services, and in all the other unclassified 
positions, there exist no statutory provisions, and the discre- 
tion of the appointing officer is complete. 

* "Women may, in the discretion of the head of any department, be 
appointed to any of the clerkships therein authorized by law upon the 
same requisites and conditions and with the same compensation as are 
prescribed for men." Act of July 12, 1870. Incorporated in Revised 
Statutes, Section 165. 



356 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

There can be no question but that the discretion entrusted 
to appointing officers under this head has often been employed 
to discriminate against the employment of women for no 
sounder reason than the personal preference of the appointing 
officer or the tradition of the department. Until the war 
emergency compelled a change there were whole bureaus in 
Washington in which the employment of women in anything 
above the lowest clerical positions, and in some cases even in 
those positions, was unknown; and despite the extreme dif- 
ficulty which was experienced at various times in securing an 
adequate supply of male stenographers, the officers in charge 
persisted in their refusal to employ women. In the technical 
positions the discrimination has been much less common, 
owing no doubt in part to the fact that only a very small pro- 
portion of qualified women eligibles have ever appeared on 
the registers. Even here, however, there unquestionably has 
been discrimination which could not be defended on any sound 
administrative grounds. 

In view of this condition, which, however much modified 
by the war, still tends to persist, it would seem desirable, so 
far as the classified competitive service is concerned, to amend 
the rule, and, if necessary, the statute, by requiring that cer- 
tification should be made without regard to sex except upon a 
certificate of the appointing officer to be approved by the Civil 
Service Commission, that administrative reasons, to be speci- 
fied, require the employm(^t of only one sex. A more sat- 
isfactory solution, however, would be the examination of the 
whole question by a representative central personnel body 
which should have power to lay down, subject perhaps to ap- 
proval by the President, a general policy on this head and to 
define its application to each specified branch of the service 
and each class of positions, such determination to be subject, 
of course, to current revision. 

Extreme feminists will contend doubtless that there is no 
need for this ; that appointme^it should be made in every case, 
regardless of sex, of the person found best qualified to fill the 
vacancy. It is this theory which doubtless is responsible for 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 357 

the measure introduced in Congress in December, 19 19, by 
Senator McLean, at the instance, apparently, of the Women's 
Trade Union League, with respect to the competitive classi- 
fied service, prohibiting appointing officers, when making upon 
the Civil Service Commission request for certifications, from 
specifying sex "unless sex is a physical barrier to the proper 
performance of the duties of the position to be filled." It 
is believed, however, that the experience of all large personnel 
systems is that it is better, in many types of organization, to 
confine the force entrusted with a given class of work entirely 
to one sex, even though either sex is qualified for the work. 
If determinations on this head are made after full considera- 
tion and opportunity for hearing, and for administrative rea- 
sons made of public record, it is believed that unjust sex dis- 
crimination is no more likely to result, and administrative 
requirements are more likely to be met, than through the en- 
actment of a rigid statutory rule like the one proposed. 
Basic Questions of Practical Procedure. — The preceding 
sections have dealt with matters of general policy in recruit- 
ment. It remains to consider certain practical matters of 
actual procedure and method to be employed in selecting re- 
cruits. The questions to be decided under this head are: 
first, the factors upon which selection will be determined, such 
as experience, education, and technical ability; and, in con- 
nection with each of these factors, the requirement to be es- 
tablished, and particularly the minimum requirement, if any, 
to be fixed, and the relative weight to be assigned to each fac- 
tor as compared with the others ; second, the method by which 
the candidate may be required to demonstrate his qualifica- 
tions, whether in writing or through an interview or by the 
performance of a manual task; and third, the method of bring- 
ing the candidate under inspection, whether by assembling 
the candidates at one place or a number of places, or by merely 
corresponding with the candidates. 

The first question, that of the subjects of examination and 
the types of requirement, is, of course, the basic one, yet what 
is practicable in this regard is largely dependent upon the 



358 > THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

method that is feasible for bringing the candidate under in- 
spection and for securing from him a demonstration of his 
quahfications. These matters, therefore, must be given at- 
tention first, and the type of requirement to be fixed and the 
weight to be attached to each subject reserved for later dis- 
cussion, in the light of the considerations here developed. 

The nomenclature for the several types of methods and 
tests vi^hich has developed in recruiting practice, particularly 
in the Civil Service Commission, in the conduct of competi- 
tive examinations, it perhaps should be said in passing, is not 
based upon any close analysis. The distinctions about to be 
developed, consequently, at some points cut across the mean- 
ing attached to terms commonly used. 

Fully-Assembled, Locally-Assembled, and Non-Assembled 
Examinations. — In fully-assembled examinations all the 
candidates are brought together in one place and at one time. 
In what are here designated as locally-assembled examinations 
they are brought together in a number of places at the same 
time, and in a non-assembled examination they are not brought 
together at any time. 

The great area of the country makes impossible, in most 
examinations for the federal service, the assembling of all 
competitors in any one place unless the examination is to be 
held for a position existing at only one point, and is to be 
restricted to applicants from the immediate vicinity. Such is 
the case notably in connection with the examinations for rural 
letter carriers and the like, and it is also true in connection 
with the open competitive examinations for presidential post- 
masters now held under executive order. ^ 

In the examinations for the foreign service conducted by 
the State Department, however, the assembled examination is 
employed, though the whole area of the country is taken as the 
field of selection. This assembled examination, which is both 

* In the latter case it may well be questioned whether, in the exam- 
ination for the more important offices, competition should as now be 
restricted to the residents of the area which the office serves ; that re- 
quirement being in force, however, it is practicable in these examinations 
to assemble all the competitors in one place. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 359 

written and oral, is preceded by a non-assembled test in which, 
on the basis of experience and other general statements, the 
candidates showing no promise are eliminated. Nevertheless 
any reasonably qualified person seeking appointment to the 
consular service must journey to Washington as a necessary 
incident to his efforts, to submit himself to examination, with- 
out any certainty of final appointment. That this require- 
ment is calculated to discourage competition for the service 
seems hardly open to question, particularly when, as now, 
no assurance is given that a strictly competitive basis, or in- 
deed any competitive basis at all, will be employed in making 
selection from among those examined. 

The suggestion made on this point by the Committee on 
the Foreign Service of the National Civil Service Reform 
League, which recently reported on the general subject of the 
foreign service, is of particular interest. The Committee em- 
phasized the fact that the holding of the written examinations 
for the foreign service in all parts of the country would make 
it possible to draw to the service a much larger number of 
applicants, much better distributed over the country as a whole, 
since the present practice results in the examination of an 
undue proportion of persons resident in and near Washington. 
With respect to the oral examination, the committee makes 
this interesting suggestion : ^ 

The candidates successful in passing the written examina- 
tions might perhaps be subjected to a preliminary oral exam- 
ination by the Civil Service examiner (at the local examining 
point) for the purpose of eliminating those candidates whose 
personality made them obviously unfitted for entering into the 
foreign service . . . and perhaps these tests would be suf- 
ficient to exclude the utterly unfit. The government should 

* Report on the Foreign Service, National Civil Service Reform 
League, 1919, pp. 25-28. The Committee makes the foUowring note to 
this statement : "A former consul has vi^ritten to the committee ex- 
pressing the view that if a candidate does not have capital enough to pay 
his own expenses to Washington he ought not to be encouraged to enter 
the service since the government does not pay consuls for some time 
jafter they have incurred expenditures and because there are incidental 
expenses which must be met by the consul out of his own pocket. Much 
of the force of this objection will be gone once the salaries are made 
adequate." 



360 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

then pay the transportation to Washington for the oral ex- 
amination for the candidates successful in the written test or 
it might examine a certain number from the head of each 
local list, reserving the remainder for later calls. This . . . 
would have the merit of preventing the exclusion of any capa- 
ble young man simply because he was unable to make the trip 
to Washington, 

For many of the positions for which open competitive 
examinations are held in the competitive classified service it is 
impracticable to confine competition to the immediate vicinity 
of the place in which the position is to be filled. With re- 
spect to positions at Washington, the civil service law requires 
that equal opportunity be given to candidates anywhere in the 
country to compete. Many of the lists are employed, more- 
over, for filling positions at a variety of places. The appli- 
cability of the method of the fully-assembled examinations to 
the federal service is thus severely limited and attention must 
be given, therefore, to the possibilities of the other two types 
— the locally-assembled and the non-assembled. Where prac- 
ticable, however, the fully-assembled examination is preferable 
to the other two types. As a thoroughgoing application of 
the competitive principle it has the value of insuring that the 
several candidates will be examined under the same condi- 
tions. The examination, moreover, can be conducted by more 
experienced and skilled examiners than can be secured in 
locally-assembled examinations. 

Locally-assembled examinations are of two kinds : those 
in which the examiners, at the several local points, merely 
place before the candidates the written questions and transmit 
the answers, whether they be in writing or in the form of 
some physical product, to the central headquarters for rating; 
and those in which the local examiners actually rate the can- 
didates. 

In the former case, no difficulty arises in connection with 
the conventional type of written examination, and a great 
majority of the locally-assembled examinations conducted by 
the Civil Service Commission for the competitive classified 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 361 

service for other than mechanical positions fall under this 
head. 

The non-assembled test, as ordinarily conducted by the 
Civil Service Commission for positions in the competitive clas- 
sified service, frequently consists of no more than a statement 
of experience. For ascertaining the relative qualifications 
of competitors under this head the non-assembled method is 
quite satisfactory, especially when supplemented, as is in- 
creasingly the case with the federal Civil Service Commission, 
by correspondence with persons to whom the candidate refers 
to verify the candidate's statements and to give an inde- 
pendent opinion on his qualifications. Even with respect to 
the matter of experience, however, it has been found of value 
in local jurisdictions to supplement the examination of the rec- 
ord by an oral examination, which has the merit of bringing 
out frequently not merely what the candidate has done and, in 
a conventional sense, how well he has done it, but how much 
he has gotten out of his experience. 

As already indicated the non-assembled test is, however, 
frequently used not merely to obtain a record of the candi- 
date's experience but to get evidence of his technical capacity, 
by requiring him to present a thesis on some subject, either 
set or left to him to select, related to the work of the position, 
and, in rare cases, as in that of a free-hand draftsman, by re- 
quiring the submission of samples of work previously done. 
The obvious difficulty connected with a non-assembled written 
test of this character is that of assuring that the thesis or 
samples submitted by the competitor actually represent only 
his own work. To a certain extent this may be checked up 
as to the thesis by means of an oral test at a subsequent date, 
at which the examiners may interrogate the candidate on the 
basis of the subject matter of his thesis. 
Oral, Written, and Manual Tests. — While the terms oral, 
written, and manual tests are broadly self-explanatory, it may 
be well to call attention to certain points in their relation which 
might not at first sight appear. It is common to think of oral 
and written tests as being of the question and answer type; 



362 THE PEDERAL SERVICE 

« 

that is, tests in which the capacity of the candidate is sought 
to be measured, not by requiring the performance of any of 
the tasks or operations which fall within the duties of the posi- 
tion, but merely by asking questions which test the candidate's 
familiarity with those duties; and, in apparent contra-distinc- 
tion to oral and written tests, manual tests frequently have 
been referred to in the nomenclature of the Civil Service 
Commission as "practical" tests. Although the distinction is 
for the most part a true one, oral tests, and more particularly 
written tests, may be fully as "practical" as are manual tests. 
Thus an examination for the position of stenographer, in 
which the candidate is required to take notes from dictation 
and to transcribe on the typewriter, is commonly spoken of 
as a written examination but it is, in every respect, as "prac- 
tical" an examination as are the manual tasks given in some 
jurisdictions for the regular mechanical trades. Less obvious 
but equally clear is the case of examination for bookkeeper or 
accountant in which it is perfectly practical to set actual prob- 
lems through a written examination; and the list might be 
extended into other less common types of posts. 

Oral tests admittedly do not lend themselves in any great 
number of cases to a "practical" examination in the sense of 
requiring the actual performance of characteristic tasks; they 
are of value chiefly in testing the possession of certain mental 
qualities which are required for the efficient performance of 
the tasks to be performed. They may be used, however, like 
the written examination as a means of inquiring into the 
candidate's education and technical capacity. The advantage 
of the oral test on this head is realized, however, only when the 
same care is taken in the rating of the answers made by the 
several candidates that is commonly taken in the rating of 
written papers. The employment of this form of test is, 
moreover, open to the obvious objections that the candidates 
are not subjected, strictly speaking, to the same tests ; and that 
it is difficult to review the judgment of the examiners when the 
test has been completed, or to conceal from the examiners the 
identity of the candidates and thus prevent the entrance of im- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 363 

proper considerations. These considerations are strongest, of 
course, where the basis of examination is strictly competitive.^ 

In the federal service the use of the oral examination is 
rendered undesirable, moreover, by the difficulty of assembling 
all the candidates in one place before a single board of ex- 
aminers. As the result doubtless of all these factors the Civil 
Service Commission has hitherto made little use of the oral 
examination as an element in the rating of candidates. In a 
number of cases, however, where personality is regarded as 
an important factor in the qualifications of a candidate, and 
where there have been but a few eligibles, the Commission 
has followed the course of summoning the candidates to Wash- 
ington for oral tests before the final promulgation of the 
.eligible list, the purpose of such test being simply to eliminate 
any competitor whose personality was clearly unsuitable. 
Under this procedure the final stage of the examination by the 
Commission and the interview of the candidates by the ap- 
pointing officer, which, in the regular course, usually follows 
some time after the completion of the examination, are in 
effect joined. 

The oral test, it should be said, is one of these employed in 
the non-competitive examinations for the positions of consul 
and diplomatic secretary and for medical officers in the Public 
Health Service. 

The use of manual examinations in selecting recruits in 
the skilled trades and in general in employments requiring 
manual skill is a fairly recent development in the field of pub- 
lic personnel work. In industry, this class of service is re- 
cruited, of course, without any formal test, the mere fact that 
one claims to be a skilled mechanic in a given line being ac- 
cepted as a sufficient basis and little attempt being made to dis- 
tinguish between relative grades of skill. The experience of 

* A recent discussion of the values of the oral test in recruitment for 
the public service — indeed one of the very few discussions on this sub- 
ject to be found anywhere — is "The Oral Test in Civil Service Exam- 
inations," by J. B. Probt, Chief Examiner, St. Paul Civil Service Com- 
mission, a paper read at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the National 
Assembly of Civil Service Commissions and published in the Proceed- 
ings, p. 54 ff. 



364 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

certain local civil service commissions, particularly the New 
York City commission, in conducting manual examinations 
for skilled trades positions, has demonstrated that there are 
wide variations in efficiency between individuals all of whom 
may be regarded as entitled to call themselves skilled mechan- 
ics in a particular line. As a result of that experience it 
seems clear that, in the recruitment of skilled labor, competi- 
tive selection, based upon the practical manual test, may be 
counted on to result in the recruitment of a higher average 
of skilled labor than do the ordinary methods of industrial 
recruitment. Up to the present time, however, the federal 
commission has not employed this method in the recruitment 
of skilled mechanics for the various branches of the govern- 
ment, chief reliance being had upon statements of experience. 
Unquestionably this method, requiring as it does the provision 
of adequate facilities in the way of plant, tools, and of ma- 
terials, and a skilled examining force, is an expensive one. 
Whether the incurring of this expense would be warranted, 
under the conditions encountered in the federal service, is an 
open question. One reason why the Commission has not taken 
steps in this direction doubtless has been that such examinations 
would often have to be held at points where it has no tech- 
nically qualified representative. 

Experience Tests. — Whether any practical experience 
shall be required of a candidate is, as has already been pointed 
out, a question of expediency rather than principle. 

More or less arbitrary requirements of a stated length of 
experience are not uncommonly met with in the requirements 
announced by the Civil Service Commission for positions in 
the competitive classified service. In practice the applications 
of persons who do not possess the prescribed requirements, 
but who have ventured, nevertheless, to file applications, are 
frequently approved by the Commission's examiners on the 
ground that the experience presented by such persons is a 
reasonable equivalent to the prescribed requirement, ■ This 
practice is a wholly sound one, but the Commission should give 
public notice of the practice by stating in its announcements of 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 365 

requirements that equivalent experience to that stated will be 
accepted. This is now done in some cases but it is not the 
general rule. 

In the competitive classified service, the experience test is 
commonly employed for two classes of positions : technical, and 
those in the skilled trades. It is not employed in examina- 
tions for the common run of clerical, sub-clerical, or non-tech- 
nical inspection positions. 

In the foreign service no experience requirement is set, 
but experience, it is needless to say, is taken into consideration 
in the selection of candidates for examination, and again, pre- 
sumably, in their selection for appointment. In the case of 
medical officers of the Public Health Service, since admission 
is only to the lowest grade, which is recruited from the ranks 
of young medical graduates, the one requirement is that of a 
year of hospital experience, or of two years' professional 
practice. 

Both where the qualifying experience test is employed, and 
where no such test is used but a mere statement of previous 
history and employment accepted from the candidate, it is in 
the highest degree desirable that investigation be made to deter- 
mine the truthfulness of the competitor's statement. Investiga- 
tion along this line frequently reveals not only false statements 
made by competitors but concealment on their part of facts 
tending to disqualify them for the service. 

In the competitive classified service the Civil Service Com- 
mission, to the extent that it makes investigation at all, usually 
permits the results of the investigation to be taken into ac- 
count in the rating; ^ and the same is true in the examinations 
which it conducts for presidential postmaster. Here, more- 
over, the customary investigation by correspondence is sup- 
plemented, in the case of examinations for offices having a 
compensation of over $2,400, by a "careful personal inves- 
tigation of each applicant by representatives of the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission, one of whom is selected by the Commission 

*The mechanical positions in the industrial establishments are an 
important exception to this statement. 



366 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

from the Post Office Department." In making such Inves- 
tigations the investigators, of course, are not confined to the 
verification of statements made by the candidate but are at 
Hberty to make inquiry from "persons best qualified to know 
the business quahfications, abihty, and experience of each can- 
didate." In the case of the foreign service and the Public 
Health Service a similar investigation, confined wholly to cor- 
respondence, is conducted. 

Independent investigation of the candidate, whether for 
rating or merely for verification, is a comparatively recent 
development in recruiting the competitive classified service, 
since the Commission, for lack of funds, has been compelled 
to leave this matter wholly to the appointing officer. Even 
from the standpoint of verification alone, this method was 
obviously Improper, since the appointing officer would not have 
the time, ordinarily, to conduct the necessary investigation in 
advance of selecting the eligible for appointment and would 
thus be compelled to appoint in ignorance of facts which, when 
later disclosed, might call for the dismissal of the eligible ap- 
pointed, a duty always unpleasant and seldom actually resorted 
to except for the gravest of reasons. In 1913, owing to the 
increase of its force, the Commission was able to make a good 
beginning In the direction of itself conducting the necessar}^ 
investigation. In 19 14, the Chief Examiner commented as 
follows on this phase of the Commission's work : 

The value of confidential vouchers as a means to ascertain 
the personal fitness and integrity of applicants for examina- 
tion has been mentioned in previous reports, and In last year's 
report the extended use of such vouchers was recorded and 
still further extension of their use was advocated. During the 
past year these inquiries have been used to a much greater 
extent than ever before, and the results have served to em- 
phasize more strongly than ever the advantages which would 
accrue to the service if It were possible to extend the system 
to practically all examinations. By means of confidential In- 
quiries In letter form it has been possible to obtain accurate 
and reliable information regarding the qualifications and per- 
sonal fitness of applicants in all kinds of positions from the 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 367 

highest to the lowest. The system comes next in value to 
personal investigation. It has been extensively used in con- 
nection with rural carrier and fourth class postmaster exam- 
inations where charges of unfitness have been made by patrons. 
It is believed that confidential inquiries should be used in 
all examinations except possibly those for the post office serv- 
ice, which are usually held only at the places of employment, 
where the postmasters have every facility for investigating 
the suitability of eligibles certified to them for selection. For 
the service in Washington or for positions for which the nomi- 
nating or appointing officer is stationed at a place remote from 
that where the examination may be held, it is believed that 
these inquiries should be made. So great an extension of the 
system would, however, materially increase the work of the 
application division and would not be practicable without the 
employment of a number of additional clerks in that divi- 
sion.^ 

Education Tests. — The extent to which education, whether 
general or technical, should be emphasized in making selection 
already has been discussed in the preceding section. Here 
the principal question that presents itself is the methods by 
which the possession of educational attainments shall be evi- 
denced. 

When educational qualifications are under discussion, the 
assumption is usually made that the reference is to formal 
schooling obtained in recognized educational institutions. 
Needless to say, however, in numerous instances substantially 
the same educational attainments have been acquired by home 
study and self -instruction that are commonly obtained through 
attendance at educational institutions. From the standpoint 
of personnel theory there is, of course, no reason why one 
who has obtained his education in this way should not be re- 
garded in every respect equal to one who has pursued more 
conventional methods. Indeed, there is some reason for sup- 
posing that in the average case, other things being equal, the 
self -instructed person is possessed of greater native ability 

* Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1914), p. 29. While no mention has been made of this matter in re- 
cent reports of the Commission, the fact is that there still remains a 
considerable field to which this procedure could and should be applied. 



368 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

and has actually acquired a firmer grasp upon the subject 
matter of his studies than has the other. 

From the standpoint of the actual administration of a re- 
cruitment system, however, the matter of testing the educa- 
tional attainments of one who has completed no regular course 
of instruction presents serious difficulties. The only way in 
which the test may be made is by an extensive and thorough- 
going examination; and this applies equally to technical as 
well as to general or academic education. The difficulties, 
under any circumstances, in giving a really extensive test of 
this kind in connection with the ordinary position are obvi- 
ous. They are especially great in connection with the admin- 
istration of the recruitment systems of the federal government 
because of the difficulty, except when the number of candi- 
dates is large, of assembling the candidates in any one place 
or even in several places for examination of this kind. Be- 
cause of the difficulties involved the tendency of the Civil 
Service Commission, in recruiting for positions in the com- 
petitive classified service, has been to employ evidence of the 
completion of a course of instruction at a recognized insti- 
tution as the sole means of testing the possession of educa- 
tional attainments whether general or technical. Unquestion- 
ably this tendency involves a certain measure of injustice to 
those who have acquired the necessary education without such 
formal attendance, and it seems to run counter to the popular 
feeling that positions in the public service should be open to 
all who are qualified regardless of technical or arbitrary re- 
quirements. Nevertheless it is difficult to see how, in the situ- 
ation confronting the recruiting authorities of the federal gov- 
ernment, this difficulty can be avoided. 

It is interesting to note that, in the examinations for the 
foreign service, no requirement of formal schooling is made 
by the State Department. The service is preeminently one 
which the tradition of other countries would dictate should 
be recruited exclusively from the ranks of those who have 
received a considerable amount of formal schooling. It is not 
believed, however, that our foreign service has suffered in any 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : BASIC ASPECTS 369 

degree from the lack of this requirement in the testing of 
candidates. 

In positions of a lower grade, the actual testing of the edu- 
cational attainments of the candidate presents less difficulty. 
Even here, however, the requirement of a minimum of formal 
education is employed in some systems. The purpose is to pre- 
vent an excessive number of competitors, both by discouraging 
those not possessing the stated minimum from making applica- 
tion, and by eliminating, without further examination, many of 
those who do apply, the larger portion of whom would doubt- 
less be disqualified if permitted to take further written or prac- 
tical examination. This use of the minimum educational re- 
quirement is justifiable from the standpoint of the practical 
necessities of a large competitive examination system. It 
eliminates a large volume of work which would otherwise be 
jexpended in examining competitors whose chances of appoint- 
ment would be at best remote, and whose elimination in any 
case has no adverse effect on the quality of the eligible reg- 
ister finally produced. Nevertheless, this method runs counter 
to the popular feeling that entrance to the public service should 
be open to all those qualified, and that requirements arbitrarily 
imposed for the convenience of the system are an infringement 
upon the rights of those barred by such requirements. It is 
particularly desirable that such a feeling should not arise in 
this connection, because the lower the grade of the examina- 
tion the larger the number of potential competitors. 

The practice of the Civil Service Commission, on the whole, 
has been well-considered on this point. Despite the continu- 
ous pressure of work on its examining force, it has resisted, 
in most cases, the temptation to impose in the lower grades 
arbitrary requirements of schooling. In its examinations for 
entrance to the lower clerical grades, and to the position of 
carrier in the Post Office Department, it has not imposed, even 
during the period when there was an over supply of appli- 
cants the requirement of a common school education. 
Technical Capacity Tests. — The desirability of applying 
some test of technical capacity to applicants, even though their 



370 • THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

experience seems clearly to demonstrate that they possess tech- 
nical capacity, has already been commented on. The test of 
technical capacity is peculiarly a competitive test, and, unless 
it can be framed so that it really serves as a fair basis of com- 
parison between candidates, it had better be omitted alto- 
gether where an experience test has already been applied. If 
it can be made actually indicative of the relative abilities of 
the candidates, however, it furnishes a valuable aid to selec- 
tion which should be employed so far as possible. 

Tests of technical capacity may be said to fall roughly into 
two classes, which, for want of better terms, may be desig- 
nated as the "question and answer" type and the "practical 
problem" type. In the question and answer type of test, the 
attempt is made to elicit the candidate's knowledge of the tech- 
nical subject matter by means of interrogatories. The prac- 
tical problem type consists in actually placing before the can- 
didate a typical problem such as he is likely to encounter in 
his work and to require a solution in substantially the form 
in which it would be required in actual practice. Clearly 
tests of this type may be given most readily where the work 
itself involves the use of no facilities or implements other than 
paper and pen, the typewriting machine, the drafting board, 
etc. It may be applied, however, and is currently applied with 
success, in the practice of several local commisisons, in tests 
of competency in the mechanical trades where more or less 
elaborate equipment must be employed. It should be noted 
further, of course, that the positions, in which books, paper, 
and pen are all the facilities that are needed for the application 
of a practical test, are by no means confined to the lower order 
of clerical positions. They embrace also at least some aspects 
of the highest legal, accounting, engineering, statistical, and 
administrative positions. Indeed, the extent to which the test 
of practical problems may be applied in what seems like a 
formal examination is usually not appreciated by those who 
have not had contact with the matter, and the use of formal 
examination methods for the higher grades of positions is 
consequently held in lower esteem than it should be. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 371 

The difficulties in conducting assembled examinations, as 
already indicated, have reduced to a minimum the possibility 
of assembled tests of technical capacity for the great majority 
of positions in the federal service, and, as has also been com- 
mented on, the non-assembled tests for technical positions are 
unreliable. As a result, the federal commission has relied 
upon its experience and education tests alone to a far greater 
degree than do the more progressive local commissions. It 
should be kept in mind always that this practice of the federal 
service is the child of necessity and that so far as practical 
conditions permit, the testing of technical capacity should be 
employed in a competitive system. 

It goes without saying that a test of technical capacity is 
no test at all unless the subject matter with which it deals, 
whether by question and answer or by practical problem, is 
relevant to the duties of the position for which selection is 
to be made. It is unfortunately a true criticism of the work 
of not a few civil service commissions that the tests of tech- 
nical capacity -which they set frequently have only a theoretical 
bearing on the duties of the position in question. This criti- 
cism is not applicable, generally speaking, to the federal com- 
mission. 

The range of subjects and positions covered by the tests 
of technical capacity set by the federal commission is so wide 
that it would be impossible, even were the means of appraisal 
much more available than they are now, to characterize in a 
single statement the quality of these tests — the appropriate- 
ness of the questions set and the judgment used in the rating. 
It may be said, however, that, on the whole, the written tests 
of the federal commission bear a high repute among examin- 
ing boards the country over; and complaints against them on 
the score of inappropriateness of questions are decidedly un- 
common. 

Where the subject matter of the technical examination is 
appropriate and where it may be reduced to a basis of prac- 
tical problems, the weight of at least half the examination 
usually may safely be given to this test. The present prac- 



Zr^ THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tice of the Civil Service Commission seems to err, if anything, 
on the side of giving too little weight to the technical test when 
such a test is applied, though this general statement is neces- 
sarily subject to the qualification that it has no application to 
many of the tests held by the Commission, 

The technical tests applied in examination for the consular 
and diplomatic services are necessarily of a rather elementary 
character inasmuch as the theory of recruitment here is that 
the persons applying will obtain a knowledge of their duties 
after appointment. From an examination of recent questions 
set in these examinations, however, it would seem that they 
could profitably be given the character of practical problems 
to a larger extent than at present. 

Psychological Tests. — A subject of test which has come 
into prominence within recent years, particularly in the re- 
cruiting methods of certain industries rather than in those of 
the public service, is that of the psychological characteristics 
of the several candidates. The examination designed to test 
the candidates on this point is commonly referred to as the 
psychological test. The object of this method is to test the 
possession by the candidate of certain mental qualities or apti- 
tudes, such as alertness, coolness, quickness of eye, shortness 
of reaction time, etc., and the tests are designed specifically 
with a view to bringing out these points, having no direct rela- 
tion, therefore, to the specific duties of the position in ques- 
tion. 

The accuracy of the indications obtained by these tests 
has been challenged by many, the contention being that the 
form of the tests themselves and the artificial conditions under 
which they are given, as well as the rather unreal nature of the 
questions asked or problems put, make the results of no value 
for practical purposes. This view seems somewhat extreme. 
On the other hand it is doubtless true that exaggerated claims 
have been made for the value of tests of this character. They 
seem to have special value, as appears to have been well estab- 
lished by the experience of the army during the war, in se- 
lecting persons for training along special lines, the purpose 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 373 

here being chiefly to discover aptitudes. It should be noted, 
however, that in this case the psychological test is applied in 
the absence of any other available indication, and it does not 
follow that great weight need be given to this type of test when 
recruitment is being carried on for a specified position, in the 
duties of which the candidates are already trained and compe- 
tent, and tests directly applicable to those duties, therefore, 
may be employed. 

Up to the present time the Civil Service Commission has 
made virtually no use of the psychological test in its recruit- 
ment work, and the same is true of the examining methods of 
the foreign service and the Public Health Service. Did the 
Civil Service Commission have a larger staff of examiners 
available, some interesting results might be secured by the ex- 
perimental application of this form of test. Many of the 
tests of this character depend for their efficacy upon the person 
conducting the test, and attention has been called already to 
the difficulties under which the Commission labors in attempt- 
ing to conduct at widely scattered points any types of test in 
which the personality or proficiency of the examiner is an 
element.^ 

The experience of the Commission with the psychological 
test is well summarized in the 19 19 report of the Chief Ex- 
aminer : 

For some time before the war the commission had given 
serious consideration to the suggestions of certain college pro- 
fessors of psychological tests for selecting salesmen, clerks, 
and other classes of employees, but felt there was not sufficient 
data of results available to justify substituting such tests for 
examinations which were securing satisfactory employees. 
Delay in rating papers, however, has always been a matter of 
much concern to the commission, because it has resulted in 
considerable loss to the government in declinations of appoint- 
ment from well qualified eligibles whose papers had not been 

* For a more extended discussion of the values of the psychological 
test, see "Psychological Tests in Civil Service Examination," by F. E. 
Doty, Chief Examiner, Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission, 
a paper read at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the National Assembly 
of Civil Service Commissioners, 1918, and published in their Proceed- 
ings, p. 41. 



374 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

rated until after several weeks, or even months, had elapsed 
since the data of the examination : and the psychological tests 
have the advantage of quick rating. 

For positions in Washington the commission is required by- 
law to announce the examinations throughout the United 
States, and when the examination is that for clerk, which re- 
quires no preliminary experience, there are usually several 
thousand competitors and consequent congestion in the ex- 
amining or rating division. Any type of test, therefore, which 
would reduce the time for rating, and at the same time have 
as good or better results in the class of eligibles secured, is 
to be sought after. Do the so-called psychological tests meet 
the second and all-important requirement as they admittedly 
meet the first? 

These new tests have been proposed thus far by their ad- 
vocates only for positions requiring no special mechanical, 
technical, or scientific skill or knowledge ; in other words, posi- 
tions similar to those for which this commission gives a gen- 
eral educational test. The largest groups of these positions 
in the government service are rural carriers, fourth class post- 
masters, clerks and carriers in city post offices, railway mail 
clerks, and first grade clerks in the departments in Washing- 
ton and at field establishments. 

Through the courtesy of officers of the Army, the Army 
alpha psychological test was given under Army direction to - 
105 of the commission's employees, and the results compared, 
in charts and tables, with the grades attained by these em- 
ployees in the commission's examinations and with the effi- 
ciency ratings of these persons as reported by their chiefs of 
division. Of the employees examined, 70 had been appointed^ 
from the first grade clerk examination, and these were divided 
into groups of 5 each for purposes of comparison. A de- 
tailed description of the results of this comparison could be 
given, with consideration of methods pursued and a statement 
as to individual exceptions, but in this brief report it is suf- 
ficient to state that using the units of five employees as the 
standard, the employees who attained the highest ratings in 
the commission's entrance examinations likewise attained the 
highest ratings in the psychological test, and their ratings in 
the commission's examinations were as closely related to their 
relative efficiency as were their ratings in the psychological 
examination. 

It would seem, therefore, that if the psychological test had 
the same result in all respects as the commission's first grade 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 375 

clerk examination, it should be adopted as the entrance test, 
because of its advantage in rapidity of rating. Let us exam- 
ine the psychological tests on the basis of comparative results 
with the present educational tests. 

In the first place, they do not afford a test in penmanship, 
brief or one-word answers only being required to their ques- 
tions, and speed in answering being a principal element. There 
is no direct test, as in the letter writing or report writing sub- 
ject, of ability to write a connected intelligent letter or simple 
composition on a given subject. To include these subjects in 
a form of psychological test would reduce the latter's advan- 
tage in speed of rating. Again, only in a minor way, and in 
the simplest forms of examples, do the psychological examina- 
tions test knowledge of arithmetic, and experience of many 
years shows clearly that the most efficient clerks in the gov- 
ernment service attained high ratings in the subject of arith- 
metic as given in the present form of examination. More- 
over, much of the government's clerical work has to do with 
figures, and, therefore, in any entrance examination emphasis 
must be placed on. ability to figure. Adding the subject of 
arithmetic, or increasing the difficulty of the minor figuring 
test now included in the psychological examinations, would 
still further reduce, if not wholly eliminate, their advantage 
in speed of rating. 

Another consideration, and an important one, entering into 
the question of the form of examination to be prescribed by 
the commission for entrance to the service is its effect on the 
public at large. The public has been educated in the funda- 
mental subjects of spelling, arithmetic, penmanship, and Eng- 
lish and understands examinations based on those subjects. 
The psychological tests have not yet been generally accepted; 
and it is only within the past year or two that prominent edu- 
cators have expressed themselves forcefully in the better maga- 
zines against the laboratory methods of certain professors of 
psychology in dealing with human beings. 

The examination problem is peculiarly the commission's, 
and it is always under consideration with a view to such im- 
provement from time to time as will meet the requirement of 
the civil service act that the commission's examinations shall 
be practical in character. The psychological examinations are 
being given serious consideration, and in a new examination 
recently held by the commission for the position of check and 
bond sorter in the Treasury Department the first subject was 
based on one of the psychological tests in figuring. Statistics 



376 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of this examination, however, are not yet available from which 
to express an opinion as to the practicability of the test. 

Arrangements have been completed with a prominent psy- 
chologist to make an exhaustive study of various types of 
examination tests with a view to determining their practica- 
bility for the commission's purposes. In order to expedite 
rating, however, and because of its limited appropriation, the 
commission itself is considering the matter of reducing the 
length of examinations now being given for clerical positions.^ 

Personality Tests. — Closely related to the psychological 
test is the test of "personality," so called. This test is mani- 
festly applicable only to those positions in which the personality 
of the incumbent is an important factor in success. Since the 
method of testing personality is almost invariably to bring the 
candidate before an examining board for interview, the per- 
sonality test suffers from the inherent disadvantages of the 
oral test already referred to. In addition, it suffers from the 
obvious difficulty of establishing in so elusive a matter as 
personality any concrete standards of comparative rating, and 
of avoiding the injection of the honest prejudices and personal 
reactions of the examiners into the rating. For these reasons 
it is believed that an oral test of personality, if employed at 
all, should be given little if any weight in determining the 
final ratings of the candidate, but it may be usefully employed 
as a means for eliminating candidates whose personality ren- 
ders them entirely unsuitable for the position. It may be 
questioned, however, whether even for this purpose it is neces- 
sary in ordinary cases, inasmuch as the experience test should 
be, in most cases, an adequate assurance that the candidates 
who are qualified for appointment possess at least a minimum 
of qualification in the way of personality. 

The test of personality is seldom separately listed and 
weighed. It is the common practice, both in the federal service 
in those examinations in which oral tests are employed, and 
in the practice of civil service commissions generally, to employ 
an "oral test" without announcement of the subjects which 

^ Thirty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1919), p. xxxi flf. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: BASIC ASPECTS 377 

are to be covered by such oral test. Frequently the test is in 
fact a combination of experience, education, technical capacity, 
and personality tests, no separate rating, however, being ob- 
tained on these several points, the whole being lumped in one 
rating. Such an arrangement is manifestly undesirable. If 
education, experience, and technical capacity have been cov- 
ered already by tests specially designed, the "oral test" should 
be treated simply as a personality test. 

In the case of the presidential postmasters, where the posi- 
tion pays $2,400 or over per annum, there is specifically applied 
a test of personality, but it is not an oral test. The regulations 
provide, as already stated, that there shall be made "a careful 
personal investigation of each applicant by representatives of 
the Civil Service Commission, one of whom is to be selected 
by the Commission from the Post Office Department." It is 
stated that the investigation should cover two purposes, one of 
them being to make a report on the business training and ex- 
perience of the candidate on the basis of which his rating will 
be made, as already set forth. The other purpose is "full 
inquiry as to each candidate's suitability for the office by reasoit 
of his character and personal characteristics, this part of the 
inquiry to be non-competitive and not considered in the rating 
of the candidate, but if he is found unsuitable by the Commis- 
sion as a result of such inquiry he, of course, will not be elig- 
ible." ^ This inquiry, it will be noted, covers "character" as 
well as personal characteristics ; but with respect to the latter it 
furnishes a unique instance of an attempt to appraise the per- 
sonal characteristics of an individual merely on the basis of an 
investigation not involving an interview with the person him- 
self. No information is available as to the proportion of cases 
in which persons have been debarred from the examination as 
a result of investigations of this type. 

^ Information regarding postmaster positions filled through nomina- 
tion by the President for confirmation by the Senate, United States Civil 
Service Commigsion, Form 2223, July, 1919, p. 3, 



CHAPTER XI 

RECRUITMENT METHODS: THE CLASSIFIED COMPETITIVE 

SERVICE 

The open competitive system by which the great mass of 
the permanent personnel of the service is recruited warrants 
a close and detailed examination, not merely because of its im- 
portance, but because, by the measure of its success or failure 
must in large measure be determined the question of the de- 
sirability of extending the competitive system to those positions 
and branches of the service where it does not obtain. More- 
over, due to the fact that this system is so extensive and so 
long established, there have been encountered in its develop- 
ment essentially all the problems which a system of this kind 
may be called upon to face, and the solutions which have been 
reached are, therefore, of special value because they reveal 
the limitations and possibilities of the competitive method of 
recruitment at particular points. 

At the outset it should be said that, while the system in 
question is often referred to as that of open competitive ex- 
amination, that term is a misnomer in that it conveys the im- 
pression that the central feature of the system is a formal 
examination, involving the assembling of the competitors in 
one place and the setting of a series of standardized tests com- 
prising usually a set of written questions to which written 
answers can be made. For not a few positions of the lower 
grades the system of recruitment does indeed have this char- 
acter. But, as will presently appear, the larger number of 
classes of positions ^ are filled by methods in which the for- 

* What is referred to in this statement is the number of distinct titles 
not of vacancies. In most of the positions for which the traditional form 
of written examination is set, vacancies and appointments are numerous, 
so that, doubtless, a great majority of the appointments are made as 
the result of such examinations. 

37§ 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 379 

mal written examination is entirely absent. It has come to be 
the practice, however, to term every invitation of appHca- 
tions, even where there is to be merely a scrutiny by the Com- 
mission of the candidate's experience, an "examination." 
Hence, the system as a whole is commonly termed one of open 
competitive examination, though open competitive recruitment 
would be a much more suitable term. In a measure it is un- 
fortunate that the term "examination" has been given this 
extended signification, as it doubtless serves to obscure in the 
minds of many the varied and flexible character of the methods 
of recruitment actually employed in filling positions in the 
federal service. 

Legal Basis. — The basic provisions of the civil service 
act upon which the system rests should, perhaps, be first re- 
viewed. Minor additions to these provisions have been made 
by statute from time to time, but may best be considered in 
connection with the particular phases of the recruitment sys- 
tem to which they apply. 

The civil service act itself lays down no mandatory pro- 
visions regarding methods of recruitment, such prescription 
being left wholly in the hands of the President. It provides, 
howevQT, that the rules to be promulgated by the President 
shall provide and declare, as nearly as the conditions of good 
administration will warrant, as follows : 

First, for open, competitive examinations for testing the 
fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to 
be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical 
in their character, and so far as may be shall relate to those 
matters which will fairly test the relative capacity and fitness 
of the persons examined to discharge the duties of the service 
into which they seek to be appointed. 

Second, that all the offices, places, and employments so 
arranged or to be arranged in classes shall be filled by selec- 
tions according to grade from among those graded highest as 
the results of such competitive examinations. 

Third, appointments to the public service aforesaid in the 
departments at Washington shall be apportioned among the 
several States and Territories and the District of Columbia 



38o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last pre- 
ceding census. . . .^ 

Fourth, that there shall be a period of probation before any 
absolute appointment or employment aforesaid.^ 

The rule requiring open competitive examinations, it will 
be noted, is to be applied only to "the public service now classi- 
fied or to be classified hereunder" and that even as to that por- 
tion of the public service it is to be applied only "as nearly 
as the conditions of good administration will warrant." The 
precise effect which has been given to these limitations in prac- 
tice was explained in a preceding chapter and need not be re- 
peated here. 

The provisions of the act providing for the appointment 
of a Civil Service Commission, and the duties to be performed 
by that body, have also been set forth in a former chapter. 
With reference specifically to the administration of the sys- 
tem of open competitive examinations required by the pro- 
vision just cited, it is provided that "said commission shall, 
subject to the rules that may be made by the President, make 
regulations for, and have control of, such examinations, and, 
through its members or the examiners, it shall supervise and 
preserve the records of the same." The act authorizes the 
commission "to employ a chief examiner, a part of whose duty 
it shall be, under its direction, to act with the examining boards, 
so far as practicable, whether at Washington or elsewhere, 
and to secure accuracy, uniformity, and justice in all their 
proceedings, which shall be at all times open to him." 
Area of Competition, — The civil service act makes no pro- 
vision regarding the geographical area to the residents of which 
admission to competition for any given post must be granted. 
It requires, however, that the rules promulgated by the Presi- 

^ The remainder of this clause provides that every application for 
an examination shall contain, among other things, a statement, under 
oath, setting forth his or her actual bona Me residence at the time of 
making the application, as well as how long he or she has been resident 
of such place. 

^ There are four additional provisions numbered fifth, sixth, seventh, 
and eighth which this section requires to be incorporated in the rules, 
but they have no reference to the competitive examination system. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 381 

dent shall provide that "appointments to the service aforesaid 
[that is, the classified service] in the departments at Wash- 
ington shall be apportioned among the several states and terri- 
tories and the District of Columbia upon the basis of popula- 
tion," and this provision clearly implies that competition for 
posts in the departments at Washington shall be open to resi- 
dents of every section of the country. With respect to the posi- 
tions in the field services there is no provision of the act which 
would seem to have any bearing; so that the power of the 
President to limit competition for any particular position in 
the field service of any area that he may deem proper would 
seem to be clear. 

The rules do not make any express provision, however, for 
the imposition of residence requirements upon candidates, 
either directly or by conferring authority upon the Commission 
to fix such requirements. Nevertheless, the Commission, in 
two cases, has taken it upon itself to fix a requirement of this 
kind; and, doubtless, should the question ever come to issue, 
its power would be upheld as being merely incidental to the 
general power of fixing requirements for admission to examina- 
tion. The cases referred to are those of rural carrier and 
fourth class postmaster. As to the former, it is provided in 
regulations promulgated by the Commission and the Post- 
master General jointly that "the Commission may refuse to 
examine an applicant . . . who is not actually domiciled within 
the territory supplied by a post office situated in the county 
for which the examination is held." ^ It should be noted that 
this requirement does not in terms impose a residence require- 
ment but merely provides that the Commission "may refuse 
to examine" an applicant who does not meet the requirement. 
In practice, however, the requirement is invariably imposed. 

The requirement in the case of fourth class postmasters is 
expressed even more tentatively, the statement being that "the 

^ Regulations Governing the Manner of Appointment to the Position 
of Carrier in the Rural Delivery Service, United States Civil Service 
Commission, Form 1494, February, 1912. This provision is further ex- 
plained thus : "The county for which a person may be examined is the 
county in which the post office that supplies his home is situated." 



382 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Commission is authorized to exclude from examination a per- 
son . . . who does not actually reside within the territory 
supplied by the office from which examination is made." ^ 
Here too the requirement is uniformly applied. 

While these are the only cases of residence requirement as 
a prerequisite to entrance to the examination that have come 
to notice, the rules make provision for the restriction of certifi- 
cation for field positions to residents of particular districts. 
The rules provide (Rule VH, 3) that "the Commission may 
arrange the territory of the United States into appropriate 
districts for the purpose of certification to positions in parts of 
the service not subject to apportionment;^ and certification 
to any such position may be confined to residents of the dis- 
trict in which such position is located." 

Curiously enough, the Commission has never exercised the 
precise authority thus conferred on it by the rules; that is, it 
has never restricted certification to the residents of any par- 
ticular district, but has instead restricted it to persons who may 
have been examined in a given district. The distinction is, of 
course, not very material, though in view of the interval which 
frequently elapses between the time of the examination and 
the time of certification the method contemplated by the rule 
would seem the more logical one.^ 

To review the various regulations as to the districting of the 
country for purposes of certification for field positions and 
the restriction of certification to those examined in such dis- 
tricts would be of no value. The several variations are with- 

^ Instructions to Applicants for the Fourth Class Postmaster Exam- 
ination, United States Civil Service Commission, Form 1759, June, 1Q19, 
section 7. 

^As will appear subsequently, there are certain positions in the 
departmental service at Washington to which the rule of apportionment 
is not applied. Whether these positions would be regarded as "not sub- 
ject to apportionment" within the meaning of this rule has never come 
up for decision, as the Commission has never attempted to apply the 
provisions of this rule to such positions. Presumably, however, the in- 
tent is to apply the rule only to field positions. 

^ It should be noted that as to field positions there is no provision 
requiring a person to be examined at or within any area related to the 
place of his residence, the provisions of the act of 1909 requiring an 
act'ual domicile of one year previous to the examination in the state in 
which examination is held having application only to apportioned positions. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 383 

out fundamental significance and are based upon the experi- 
ence of the Commission in each case. For the purpose of ref- 
erence they are given below. ^ 

^Indian Service. — For filling a vacancy in the Indian Service (except 
in clerical positions) certification is made of the highest three eligibles 
on the proper register who indicate a willingness to accept appointment 
in the State where the vacancy exists. Competitors are given opportu- 
nity at the time of their examination to state the locality in which they 
are willing to accept employment. They may mention the states in which 
they wish to be employed or state that they are willing to accept em- 
ployment anywhere in the United States. 

Lay Inspector in the Bureau of Animal Industry. — This method is 
also followed in making certifications for the position of lay inspector 
in the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture. 

Chinese and Immigrant Inspector. — For purposes of certification of 
eligibles for appointment to the positions of Chinese and immigrant in- 
spector, the United States is divided into four districts, the Mississippi 
River being the dividing line north and south and the northern boundaries 
of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Ari- 
zona, Nevada, and California the dividing line east and west. 

Positions in the Canal Zone. — As a result of examinations for posi- 
tions in the Canal Zone two lists of eligibles will be established, one 
containing the names of persons examined in the Canal Zone, and the 
other containing the names of those examined at other places. Those 
examined in the Canal Zone will be preferred for appointments in the 
Panama Canal Service in the Canal Zone. 

Customs Seruice. — For the Customs Service certification will be made 
of eligibles examined in the customs district in which the vacancy ex- 
ists, except that when a customs district extends over parts of two or 
more civil service districts certification will be made of eligibles exam- 
ined in that part of the customs district which is in the civil service 
district in which the vacancy exists. 

Iruternal Revenue Service. — For the Internal Revenue Service cer- 
tification will be made of those examined in the internal revenue dis- 
trict in which the vacancy exists. This does not apply to the Tenth 
Civil Service District, where vacancies will be filled by the certificatlori 
of persons examined in the city in which, or in the vicinity of which, th^ 
vacancy exists. 

Railway Mail Clerk. — The railway mail clerk register is kept by states, 
according to the legal residence of the eligibles, and when a vacancy 
occurs requisition is made for certification from the register of the 
state in which the vacancy exists. If there is no register in the state in 
which the vacancy exists, certification is made from an adjoining state 
having available eligibles. 

An eligible on the railway mail clerk register is allowed to have his 
eligibility transferred from the register of one state to that of another 
only when he can show that he has been a bona fide resident of the state 
to which transfer of eligibility is desired for a period of at least six 
months next preceding the date of the request. 

Clerk, and Carrier for City Delivery, in Post Offices. — For the posi- 
tions of clerk, and carrier for city delivery, in post offices, a separate 
register is established for each classified post office, containing the names 
of eligibles examined for such office. For certain large post offices sepa- 
rate mail clerk and carrier registers are established, while for all other 
offices in which both clerks and city carriers are employed the names of 
male eligibles are entered on both the clerk and carrier registers. Copies 
of registers established for a post office are furnished the postmaster, 



384 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



Needless to say where, owing to the small number of 
eligibles examined in one district, it is found impracticable to 

and he makes selection to fill a vacancy from the highest three names 
on the appropriate register. 

Rural Carrier. — In filling a vacancy in the position of rural carrier 
there will be certified the name of the person standing highest on the 
register who has his actual domicile in the territory supplied by the post 
ofiice at which the vacancy exists, together with the names of the t^yo 
eligibles standing highest on the register for the entire county, who have 
not expressed unwillingness to accept appointment at such post office. 
After due opportunity to become eligible has been given to persons hay- 
ing their domicile in the territory of such office and such persons fail 
to become eligible, the three eligibles standing highest on the county 
register who have not expressed unwillingness to accept appointment at 
such office will be certified. 

Fourth Class Postnmster.- — In filling a vacancy in the position of 
fourth class postmaster there will be certified the names of three eligibles, 
if there be that many, standing at the head of the register. Certification 
will be made without regard to sex, unless specified in the request for 
certification. Where more than one member of a family is examined 
for fourth class postmaster, only the name of the member receiving the 
highest eligible rating will be entered upon the eligible register. Should 
this person withdraw his eligibility, the name of the member of the fam- 
ily who received the next highest rating may, upon his request, be en- 
tered upon the register. 

Forest Clerk in the Forest Service and Field Clerk in the Reclama- 
tion Service. — In filling vacancies in the positions of forest clerk in the 
Forest Service and field clerk in the Reclamation Service preference will 
be given to persons examined in the locality in which the vacancy exists. 
In case the register for any locality becomes exhausted, resort may be 
had to the register for the nearest locality that contains the names of 
eligibles available for the position vacant. 

Stenographer, Typeivriter, and Stenographer and Typewriter. — In 
making certification for filling vacancies in the positions of stenographer, 
typewriter, and stenographer and typewriter occurring in field services, 
the regulations outlined in the foregoing paragraphs relative to methods 
of certification for various branches of the service will apply so far as 
possible. In case the register for any locality becomes exhausted, resort 
may be had to the register for the nearest locality that contains the names 
of eligibles available for the position vacant. Each competitor will be 
given an opportunity at the time of his examination to indicate the locali- 
ties in which he is willing to accept appointment. 

Certifications for filling vacancies in the positions of stenographer, 
typewriter, and stenographer and typewriter in offices of chiefs of field 
divisions of the Land Office Service will be made of eligibles examined 
at the place at which, or in the immediate vicinity of which, the vacancy 
exists ; and in the absence of such local eligibles certification will be 
made of eligibles examined in the state in which the vacancy exists.^. 

Clerk in the Army Transport Service. — Certification for filling va- 
cancies in the position of clerk in the Army Transport Service will be 
made of eligibles examined in the city, or the vicinity of the city, from 
which the transport sails. 

Other Educational Positions. — In filling vacancies in any position 
filled by educational examination not specifically provided for above, 
certification will be made of eligibles examined at the place at which, or 
in the immediate vicinity of which, the vacancy exists, except in the 
absence of local eligibles after due opportunity of local competition has 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 385 

confine certification to that district, resort may be had to a 
larger area or even to the whole country. 

Examining and Recruiting Organization. — ' Under the Chief 
Examiner at Washington is a force of examiners and examin- 
ing clerks. In addition to its own staff of examiners the Com- 
mission makes use to some extent of the personnel of the vari- 
ous departments for the preparation of questions and the rating 
of examinations, particularly in connection with the more tech- 
nical and scientific subjects. Occasional use is also made of 
experts not in the government service for special examining 
work. In addition to this central force the commission main- 
tains at twelve principal cities district ofiRces in charge of dis- 
trict secretaries. The function of these officers is to serve as 
centers for publicity, for the conduct and supervision of ex- 
aminations and for the maintenance of eligible lists for the 
districts within their jurisdiction. The only examining work, 
that is, actual rating of candidates done in or from these dis- 

been afiforded, when certification may be made from registers for the 
nearest locality containing the names of available eligibles. 

When certification for filling vacancies in a certain position or class 
of positions ordinarily is restricted to eligibles examined within a certain 
prescribed territory, and it is found to be impracticable to obtain suf- 
ficient eligibles from examinations held in such territory, then, when the 
territory in which the examination is held is extended by special an- 
nouncement of an examination in an effort to obtain additional eligibles, 
the territory from which certification will be made is likewise extended 
for the vacancy or vacancies covered by the announcement, unless the 
announcement specified otherwise. 

Non-educational Positions. — In filling vacancies in non-educational 
positions for which applications are filed with the district secretary, 
certification will be made of eligibles readily available for employment — • 
that is, of those who live in the place or in the vicinity of the place of 
employment and of those who do not live in the place or vicinity but 
who have presented themselves to a member of the local board of civil 
service examiners (or to the employing officer, when there is no local 
board member) at the place at which employment is desired. An eligible 
who does not live in the place where he desires employment will not 
be certified for appointment there until he has personally appeared be- 
fore a member of the local board of examiners (or the employing of- 
ficer) at that place, has secured a certificate from the board member 
(or the employing officer) showing the date on which he appeared, and 
has filed such certificate with the district secretary. In this connection 
vicinity is defined as the territory within the usual commuting distance. 
An employing officer is the official in charge of an office or other es- 
tablishment. 

In filling vacancies in non-educational positions for which appli- 
cations are filed with local boards, certification will be made in accord- 
ance with the special regulations governing. 



386 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

trict offices is in connection with examinations for skilled trades 
positions. 

At each town of any importance within each district, more- 
over, is a so-called local civil service board consisting of three 
persons employed in one or another of the field services of 
the government. These boards are specifically created by the 
civil service act which provides that "the commission shall, at 
Washington, and in one or more places in each State and Ter- 
ritory where examinations are to take place, designate and select 
a suitable number of persons, not less than three, in the official 
service of the United States, residing in said State or Terri- 
tory, after consulting the head of the department or office in 
which such persons serve, to be members of boards of ex- 
aminers, and may at any time substitute any other person in 
said service living in such State or Territory in the place of 
any one so selected. Such boards of examiners shall be so 
located as to make it reasonably convenient and inexpensive 
for applicants to attend before them." At the present time 
there exist some 2,000 of these boards. Their function is to 
give information regarding examinations, and to conduct writ- 
ten examinations for the positions for which there are numerous 
competitors. 

Places of Holding Examinations. — 'The number and dis- 
tribution of the places in which the examination is held is an 
important factor affecting the extent of the competition secured 
for a given position. As stated in the preceding chapter, for 
a number of positions, the Commission does not require the 
competitors to assemble in any one place; but it does for the 
great clerical examination and those for technical positions to 
which appointments are made in considerable numbers. In 
these examinations, the great area of the country presents to 
the Commission an examination problem far more difficult 
than that found in any other jurisdiction in the world where 
a system of competitive examination for the public service is 
in force. The Commission, from the beginning, has grappled 
boldly with the problem, and has developed a system under 
which the examinations for the more popular positions are 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 387 

fully as accessible to every citizen, so far as the place of holding 
is concerned, as they could reasonably be expected to be, and 
probably more so. There are now 443 cities in which the 
Commission has rooms permanently assigned for examina- 
tion purposes. 

The examinations for the ordinary clerical positions are 
held at hundreds and sometimes even thousands of points. In 
the examination for census clerk held in 191 9 to fill several 
thousand vacancies in Washington, applications were invited 
for examination at any of 2,150 points. For the scientific or 
other specialized positions in which vacancies are few and 
infrequent, examinations are held only at the more important 
centers. 

Ordering of Examinations. — The ordering of examina- 
tions is done largely upon the specific requests of departments ; 
though, in a number of positions, the demand is so regular and 
unremitting that examinations are held periodically almost as 
a matter of course. In connection with the ordering of exami- 
nations, the commission has been prone in the past to allow 
the appointing officers or the department concerned to have a 
large, if not determining, voice in deciding whether a special 
examination shall be held for a particular position open in the 
department, or whether the positions shall be filled by certifi- 
cations from lists obtained by other examinations of a similar 
or more general kind. Where much heed is given to the 
views of departments in this respect, it is the universal experi- 
ence that each department tends to overemphasize greatly the 
peculiarity of the qualifications required for its own work and 
to favor special examinations when, from any outside view- 
point, candidates obtained as the result of examinations of a 
more general kind would be amply satisfactory. This result 
has unquestionably ensued in the federal service and persists 
to-day, although in lessened degree. The Commission would 
do well to adopt a more independent position in this matter 
than it has heretofore, and to insist on its own right and ability 
to decide at least in the case of the run of subordinate positions 
the propriety of filling such positions from any given list. 



388 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

A factor which has greatly increased the difficulty under 
which the Commission has labored in unifying its examina- 
tions has been the absence of standard titles and work specifi- 
cations for the several positions. A mere dissimilarity of 
titles as between different departments has given the appear- 
ance of dissimilarity in duties when no real dissimilarity was 
present. This is a point at which the need for standard classi- 
fications of types of service common to two or more depart- 
ments, and the advantages to be realized by such standardiza- 
tion, are very great, though not commonly appreciated by 
those not in intimate contact with the workings of a large 
public personnel system. 

In connection with the problem of unifying examinations 
the following statement, made in 1909 by the Chief Examiner 
of the Commission, is of interest : 

Particular attention is invited to the progress that has 
been made in carrying out the Commission's policy of con- 
solidation, or unification, of examinations and resultant com- 
bination of eligible registers. Additions to the classified serv- 
ice have usually taken the form of executive orders directing 
the classification of one or more entire branches of the service 
at a time. In applying the examination system to the dif- 
ferent services as they were classified it was found that ap- 
pointing officers held various views as to what constituted suit- 
able examinations or tests. The result has been a variety of 
different examinations for practically similar positions in dif- 
ferent parts of the service. For example, the examination for 
elevator conductor in the departments at Washington and in 
some offices in the field consisted of a simple mental test com- 
bined with a rating on experience, while the examination for 
the same position in the custodian service contained no mental 
test. Again, in some branches of the service the examination 
for watchman consisted of simple mental tests, physical con- 
dition, and experience, while for other parts of the service no 
mental test was given. It was found that three different kinds 
of examinations were given for the position of messenger in 
various parts of the service. Likewise, there grew up a num- 
ber of examinations for general clerical positions, which, 
though similar in degree of difficulty, contained different forms 
gi tests, 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 389 

It is highly desirable, economically and otherwise, that the 
examinations for a given kind of position common to more 
than one branch of the service be identical in scope and char- 
acter wherever such positions may occur in any part of the 
classified service. Accordingly, the Commission has asked and 
obtained the assent of departments concerned to the unification 
of examinations for several positions, as follows : Messenger, 
watchman, skilled laborer, elevator conductor, trained nurse, 
physician, and general clerical positions. It is hoped still fur- 
ther to unify and consolidate the examinations and thus to 
simplify in many ways the work of the Commission in holding 
examinations, rating papers, and certifying eligibles, as well as 
to make available for the service the best material in the way 
of applicants, that has been divided among different registers 
of eligibles. 

The application of this policy will tend to eliminate com- 
plications in the matter of assignments of employees and to 
give greater elasticity and availability to the force in any par- 
ticular establishment or part of the service. Particularly, it 
is believed that great benefit will result in the filling of vacan- 
cies in the various field services, for it will be possible to have 
the eligible registers for these services kept in the offices of 
the Commission's district secretaries throughout the country; 
examinations to be held locally and registers maintained sepa- 
rately for each particular place and its immediate vicinity, 
where there may be federal establishments ; and the matter of 
certification and selection for appointment will then be handled 
in the first instance by the local officials in charge of the vari- 
ous services and the Commission's district secretaries. It is 
believed that this procedure will result not only in economy of 
time and labor in promptly filling vacancies, but will also give 
the local officials the opportunity to select and recommend for 
appointment the best fitted of those certified. 

Advertising and Inviting Applications. — When an ex- 
amination has been ordered, the next step is to advertise and 
invite applications. Ordinarily use is made of the post offices 
and other public buildings for posting announcements of ex- 
aminations, and a number of educational and other institutions 
regularly receive all announcements of the Commission and 
bulletin them. Incidentally the not inconsiderable number of 
correspondence schools which undertake to give instruction, qx 



390 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

rather to coach, for the principal examinations at which large 
numbers are examined, such as clerk, carrier, etc., furnish a 
considerable quantity of advertising, much of it, however, 
more or less unreliable and misleading. Finally, announce- 
ments are sent to many newspapers and technical periodicals, 
which give publicity to such announcements in their news 
columns. 

In addition to these general methods the Commission fur- 
nishes the announcement of any particular examination, as 
ordered, to any one filing his name with the Commission. The 
difficulty with this method is that the applicant must specify 
the particular examination. Several years ago the Chief 
Examiner of the Commission recommended that a method be 
adopted whereby application could be made for information 
regarding all examinations which might be in line with the 
individual's qualifications. He stated : 

Many persons who might be well qualified for some po- 
sition in the classified service are not sufficiently familiar with 
the organization of the departments, the places of employ- 
ment, and the qualifications needed in the different offices or 
establishments, to enable them to decide for which position 
their experience, training, and education best fit them to com- 
pete. For example, because of lack of knowledge where to 
obtain the information or because of failure to see in a news- 
paper or to observe elsewhere the announcement of some ex- 
amination exactly fitting his qualifications, a person may apply 
for an examination for a position for which he is not fitted, 
whereupon he fails to pass, or, if he passes, his rating is too 
low to bring him within reach of certification for appointment. 
If he had known of the examination for the position which 
actually fitted his qualifications, he would have had an excellent 
prospect of appointment and the government would have been 
in position to avail itself of his services. 

It is suggested that the commission might well supplement 
its present means of communication with intending applicants 
by incorporating in the Manual of Examinations a blank form 
on which an intending applicant may set forth a statement of 
his age, experience, and education, the places where, and the 
salary at which he would accept employment, and file it with 
the commission. The commission would then be in position 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 391 

to call to his special attention any examinations pending or 
announced in future which seemed most closely to fit his quali- 
fications. The qualifications needed in the public service cover 
a field so wide that, unless an applicant's demands as to salary 
or place of employment are such as to make it impossible for 
him to secure government employment, the commission would 
be able to advise him, when in possession of data in regard to 
his experience, education, etc., of examinations for positions 
for which he would be best fitted and which might not other- 
wise come to his attention. 

Such a plan could not, however, be carried out unless ad- 
ditional employees were provided, but it is believed that the 
benefits to the service which would result would amply jus- 
tify the necessary additional expense for clerical assistance. 

No action was, however, taken on this recommendation. 
In addition to these regular methods of publicity the Com- 
mission quite frequently, when an examination is ordered for 
which special technical qualifications are demanded, goes to 
considerable lengths to reach all classes of persons who may 
be in a position to bring the needs of the government to the 
attention of qualified persons. 

As the range of governmental activities has widened, nec- 
essarily the number and variety of the commission's examina- 
tions have increased, and there has arisen need for closer and 
more definitive advertising of examinations in order to reach 
the best qualified applicants. Therefore, in addition to the 
procedure ordinarily followed in announcing examinations, the 
application division has gradually built up, for scientific and 
technical examinations, a series of mailing lists of publica- 
tions, universities, and colleges, associations, clubs, profes- 
sors, and technical experts, to whose attention are brought 
any examinations in which it is believed they will be directly 
interested or can interest others. 

Illustrative cases are : 

Valuation analyst. Interstate Commerce Commission: An- 
nouncements for this examination were sent to 400 profes- 
sional, technical, or railroad publications, 1,300 chief account- 
ing officers of railroads, 700 members of the American 
Statistical Association, 700 secretaries of trade organizations, 
and, through the courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce of the 



392 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

United States, a notice of the examination was inserted in 
its bulletin, which was distributed to 700 commercial organ- 
izations and 3,000 individuals. 

Chief statistician for vital statistics, Bureau of the Census : 
Announcements were sent to 175 medical journals, 100 health 
officers of cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, 48 State 
health officers, 500 actuaries and statisticians of insurance com- 
panies, 700 members of the American Statistical Association, 
50 secretaries of American medical societies, and 48 secretaries 
of State medical boards. 

Despite the zeal and thoroughness with which the Com- 
mission has thus attempted to canvass the field in the case of 
positions of a technical character, it is believed that the use of 
display advertising in scientific and technical journals, in addi- 
tion to the news notes of examinations which now appear in 
those journals, would bring the examinations to the attention 
of a wider circle, embracing many men and women whom pres- 
ent methods do not reach because these people, to begin with, 
do not have any interest in the federal service. It has been 
the experience of commissions elsewhere, particularly of the 
New York City Civil Service Commission, that display adver- 
tising in these journals does reach this most desirable class 
of possible applicants. The expense involved, moreover, is, 
because of the low rates charged by most of these publications, 
relatively small. The federal commission has never made use 
of this method. It never has obtained any appropriation for 
the purpose ; nor has it ever made a serious attempt to do so. 
Safeguarding the Integrity of Examinations. — In any 
formal system of examination, safeguards must be provided 
to insure the integrity of the examination; and if the system is 
on a strictly competitive basis the need is, of course, greatly 
increased. The most obvious need is to prevent the questions 
in written test, or the ''problem" in a manual or "practical" 
test, from becoming known to any of the competitors prior to 
the test. 

The procedure which has been adopted by the Civil Service 
Commission to keep advance knowledge of the questions, not 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 393 

only from the competitor, but from the local board, has been 
thus described by the Chief Examiner of the Commission : ^ 

The questions for assembled examinations are prepared by 
the examiners in Washington, the utmost care being taken to 
see that their confidential character is preserved during the 
course of their preparation and printing. The original of any 
set of questions bears the initials of the examiner or examiners 
who prepared it. Only one copy is allowed to be made, no 
copies or notes of the question being allowed to be retained 
by the examiners who prepare them. 

The examination question room, where unused printed 
questions are kept, is accessible only to the clerks employed 
there and to the supervising officers. The application divi- 
sion advises the clerk in charge of the question room of the 
number of applicants for whom papers must be shipped to each 
place of examination, and shipments are made accordingly, in 
securely sealed packages, to the lopal secretaries of the boards 
of examiners. The seals are not broken until the competitors 
are assembled, and then only in their presence. An invoice 
of the papers shipped is inclosed in the package, and the local 
examiners are required to account for each paper shipped, both 
used and unused papers to be returned under seal, by regis- 
tered mail, to the Commission immediately after the close of 
the examination. 

The impersonation of a candidate by one who is better 
qualified to take the examination, or, subsequent to the exami- 
nation, the impersonation of the examined candidate with his 
consent for the purpose of obtaining appointment, are addi- 
tional possibilities against which precaution must be taken. 
Prior to 1914 the Commission relied for this purpose upon a 
comparison of the "declaration sheet" filled out by the com- 
petitors at the time of examination with one filled out at the 
time of appointment; and this method was successful in pre- 
venting numerous attempts at impersonation. 

It is not possible, however, under this plan, to detect at- 
tempts at impersonation in all cases at the time the appointee 
reports for duty, for the reason that a considerable period of 

^Thirty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1914), p. 28. 



394 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

time may elapse between the actual selection of the appointee 
from a certificate issued by the Commission and the date he 
reports for duty; consequently his examination papers are not 
in the possession of the officer before whom the declaration 
of appointee is made, but have been returned to the commission 
with the report of selection, and the actual identification can- 
not be completed until the commission has had an opportunity 
to compare the declaration of appointee with the answers to 
the personal questions in the application and the examination 
papers. For the reasons stated, it has happened that persons 
not entitled to be appointed have been sworn in and have ac- 
tually served for short periods before their deceit or fraud 
has been discovered. The departments have, of course, 
promptly removed persons who have fraudulently secured ap- 
pointment, upon report of the facts by the commission; but 
it has been felt for some time that a system should be put in 
operation whereby it would be impossible for an individual to 
impose on the government by securing employment by fraudu- 
lent means, even for a short period of time before discovery 
and punishment. 

From the beginning of the examinations for the Philippine 
and Panama Canal services each competitor has been required 
to present to the examiner at the time of examination a photo- 
graph of himself taken within two years, as a means of iden- 
tification. This, of course, is a positive identification of the 
competitor, and when the photograph is compared with the 
face of the person who reports for duty, there can be no ques- 
tion of impersonation. In the case of appointments to these 
services beyond the seas it was absolutely necessary that posi- 
tive identification should take place before the appointees sailed, 
at the expense of the government, for their places of em- 
ployment. The requirement was later extended to examina- 
tions for the Indian Service and for guard in United States 
penitentiaries. 

The extension of the use of photographs for identification 
of competitors to all examinations of the commission involved 
a large amount of additional work for the commission, in 
the handling of applications and in the proper filing of the 
photographs with the examination papers. It also involved a 
slight additional expense to each applicant. Therefore, al- 
though the commission has for years recognized the advan- 
tages of the use of photographs for identification, as shown 
by their use for some services, the extension of the plan to all 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 395 

examinations has been withheld until the present time. By 
action of May 27, 19 14, the use of photographs for identifica- 
tion of competitors was extended to all examinations,^ 

A final type of precaution found necessary is that aimed 
to conceal from the examiner the identity of the candidate 
whose paper he is rating. The procedure on this head is thus 
described by the Chief Examiner of the Commission: 

The first paper given to a competitor in an examination 
is known as the "declaration sheet," and this is the only paper 
of his examination on which he signs his name. The dec- 
laration sheet is, in other words, a sheet of identification. It 
bears at its top a printed number, which is to be used by the 
competitor in place of his name on all other sheets of his ex- 
amination. Before any of the actual examination is given to 
the competitor he must fill out and sign the declaration sheet, 
placing his examination number on a sheet of general instruc- 
tions, or preliminary sheet, which he retains until the exam- 
ination is completed. As soon as all the competitors have filled 
out the declaration sheets these sheets are collected, placed in 
an envelope, and sealed, there to remain until the papers of 
all the competitors have been rated. Competitors are invited 
to remain and see the papers wrapped and sealed for return to 
the commission. 

When the returned papers are received at the commis- 
sion's office, they are sent direct to the examination question 
room, where they are opened and the invoice checked. Un- 
used questions are returned to the proper place and the used 
papers are arranged by subjects, in bundles containing from 
100 to 300 sheets. A bundle of papers on one subject is 
often composed of papers from man,y different examination 
places. After the papers have been so arranged by subjects, 
they are sent to the examining division for rating. Each 
examiner who rates examination papers specializes on cer- 
tain subjects. The identity of any competitor on whose paper 
he may be working at any time is unknown to him. The rat- 
ing is done in accordance with specific rules laid down by the 
commission, and the work of each examiner is reviewed by 
another, not because of any suspicion of favoritism or un- 
fairness on the part of the first examiner, but in order to se- 
cure accuracy in the rating. An examiner is not permitted to 

^ Report of the Chief Examiner, contained in the Thirty-first Report 
of the United States Civil Service Commission (1914), p. 27. 



396 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

select the papers of his special subject for any particular place 
of examination, but his work is assigned to him by an issue 
clerk, who assigns it in such manner as to complete the whole 
most expeditiously. 

When the papers of all the subjects have been rated and 
reviewed they are assembled and the general average com- 
puted, after which the envelopes containing the declaration 
sheets are opened. It will be seen that in this way the iden- 
tity of the competitor is not disclosed until all the rating is 
completed for all of the competitors of the same examination. 

In this connection it should be noted that no precaution 
can be taken by which an examiner may be prevented from 
recognizing the handwriting of a competitor whose handwriting 
is familiar to him. It is this possibility which is especially 
present where the personnel of the several departments assist 
in the rating, for it frequently happens that some of the com- 
petitors are drawn from the personnel of the same department 
as the examiners. 

In rating experience it is extremely difficult to conceal 
the identity of the several candidates fromi the examiner. In 
the first place, even if the rating is based solely on the candi- 
date's own statement, the well informed examiner in the 
case of important positions is more than likely to identify some 
of the candidates merely from the facts given by them re- 
garding their experience. In no way can this be guarded 
against. In many cases, moreover, the Commission makes 
inquiry of persons referred to by the candidate as qualified 
to express opinion as to his qualifications, and it places the 
replies before the examiners as a basis for rating, and conse- 
quently it is next to impossible, except at a disproportionately 
great cost for clerical labor, to conceal the identity of the 
candidates from the examiners. 

At several minor points in the present practice of the Com- 
mission additional precaution might be taken without any 
considerable expense. One of these would be to revise the 
form of application blank so as to permit the name of the 
candidate to be detached before the submission of the blank to 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 397 

the rating examiner, a practice in vogue with most local com- 
missions. Again, there is no reason why the vouchers sub- 
mitted by the candidate should be placed before the rating ex- 
aminer, inasmuch as the persons making such vouchers are 
not required to testify to the candidate's qualifications but 
merely to his good character. The present practice on this 
point permits shrewfi candidates desiring to impress the ex- 
aminers, to obtain the signatures of influential persons who 
may in fact be but slightly acquainted with them, though sat- 
isfying the technical requirements of the voucher. 

It may be of value to mention here the several statutes 
which afiford additional protection to the integrity of the Com- 
mission's examination system. The civil service act itself 
provides (Section 5) that: 

Any said commissioner, examiner, copyist, or messenger, 
or any person in the public service who shall willfully and 
corruptly, by himself or in cooperation with one or more other 
persons, defeat, deceive, or obstruct any person in respect of 
his or her right of examination according to any such rules 
or regulations, or who shall willfully, corruptly, and falsely 
mark, grade, estimate, or report upon the examination or 
proper standing of any person examined hereunder, or aid 
in so doing, or who shall willfully and corruptly make any 
false representations concerning the same or concerning the 
person examined, or who shall willfully and corruptly fur- 
nish to any person any special or secret information for the 
purpose of either improving or injuring the prospects or 
chances of any person so examined or to be examined, being 
appointed, employed, or promoted, shall for each such offense 
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction 
thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hun- 
dred dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars, or by im- 
prisonment not less than ten days nor more than one year, or 
by both such fine and imprisonment. 

It will be noted that the application of this provision is re- 
stricted to persons in the public service. In addition, under 
various decisions, it has been held that the statutes forbidding 
perjury ^ prohibits willfully false answers by applicants and 
* Criminal Code, Section 125. 



398 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the statute prohibiting forgery for the purpose of defrauding 
the United States ^ covers impersonation, and the forging of 
vouchers. In addition the statutes prohibiting bribery - are 
also, of course, appHcable to acts done in connection with ex- 
aminations. Perhaps the most sweeping statutory protection, 
however, is that found in the provisions of the Criminal Code 
prohibiting conspiracy ^ which provides for the punishment of 
either party to a conspiracy, where "two or more persons con- 
spire either to commit any offense against the United States 
or to defraud the United States in any manner or for any 
purpose and one or more of such parties do any act to effect 
the object of the conspiracy." Since it has been held that 
any conduct by virtue of which a person obtains or is put in 
the position of obtaining appointment contrary to the laws 
and regulations constitutes a fraud upon the United States, it 
would seem that this statute covers virtually any improper act 
and punishes not merely the officer of the United States, as 
does the provision of the civil service law, but the candidate. 
The section, however, has never been invoked except in con- 
nection with the making of a false statement. Moreover, it 
should be noted that it applies only where there have been 
two or more parties involved in the act. The act of a single 
competitor could not be brought within this section, and pre- 
sumably, unless falling within the statutory prohibitions against 
perjury, forgery, or bribery, would not be punishable. 
Examination of Fourth Class Postmasters and Rural 
Carriers. — For one class of competitive classified posi- 
tions, the system of examination is necessarily different from 
that used for ordinary positions, namely for fourth class post- 
masters. These postmasters are in charge of village offices the 
annual receipts of which for stamped paper are less than 
$i,8oo. In most cases these positions are filled by the appoint- 
ment of retail storekeepers who conduct the postal business in 
their stores. 

^ Criminal Code, Section 28. 

* Criminal Code, Sections 39 and 112. 

' Criminal Code, Section 37. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 399 

The regulations now in force ^ divide the fourth class 
postmasterships into two distinct groups, according to whether 
the annual compensation is less than $180, or $180, or more. 
The positions in the first group, now numbering about 15,000, 
are only nominally in the competitive service. They afford 
little, if any, opportunity for competition, since an office pay- 
ing less than $180 is almost always located in a place so small 
that it contains not more than one store or other place suitable 
for a post office. The method provided here by the regulations 
is that of appointment after report of a post office inspector, 
based on a visit to the locality, such visit being made after 
public invitation of applications and notice of the intended 
visit. The inspector's report must also be filed with the Com- 
mission. Political or religious considerations in selection or 
appointment are prohibited. It is further provided that upon 
sworn statements submitted by one or more persons, who are 
property taxpayers and patrons of a post office in this class, 
that an applicant or eligible is unsuitable, the Civil Service 
Commission, if satisfied with the evidence submitted, may bar 
an applicant from -further examination, or, if already examined, 
for appointment, or, if already appointed, may even require his 
removal.^ 

* "Regulations Governing the Appointment of Postmasters of the 
Fourth Class," U. S. C. S. C, Form 1752. 

' The regulations are as follows : 

Appointment to offices having an annual compensation of less than 
$180 shall be made in the following manner: When a vacancy has oc- 
curred or is about to occur in any such office, the Postmaster General 
shall direct a post office inspector to visit the locality and make report 
for appointment from among the persons filing applications, in the order 
of their fitness ; due notice of such visit shall be made in the locality to 
be visited; such report shall be based solely upon the suitability of the 
applicant and his ability to provide proper faciHties for transacting the 
business of the office. The inspector shall make his report in duplicate 
and accompany each duplicate with a list of all applicants. Such report 
shall include a statement of the qualifications of each applicant and of 
the reasons for such report. The Post Office Department shall transmit 
to the Civil Service Commission one copy of such report showing the 
action thereon. 

Whenever persons who are property taxpayers and patrons of a 
post office having an annual compensation of less than $180 submit to 
the Civil Service Commission and to the Post Office Department sworn 
statements in duplicate, over their own signatures, that an applicant, an 
eligible, or an appointee, is unsuitable for office, giving specific reasons 
therefor, the commission may investigate the matter, and if upon 



400 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

It will thus be seen that fourth class postmasterships pay- 
ing less than $i8o,^ although in the competitive classified 
service, are filled without intervention of the Civil Service 
Commission, except as such intervention is invoked by citizens 
as to the unfitness of any particular candidate, or as it is in- 
itiated by the Commission because of suspicion of political 
considerations having entered into appointment. Since these 
orders went into effect, there have been but few cases in 
which the Commission's intervention was invoked under the 
first head, or in which it has intervened under the second. It 
may be said, therefore, with substantial accuracy that the power 
of selection of the Post Office Department as to these offices 
is uncontrolled except where the recommendation of the post 
office inspector on its face is so unreasonable as to warrant 
the suspicion that it was made for political or other improper 
considerations. 

With respect to the positions in which the compensation 
is $i8o or more, now numbering about 20,000, the order pro- 
vides that appointments "shall be made in the same manner 
as provided by the civil service laws and rules for other 

the evidence it is shown to the satisfaction of the commission that, in the 
case of an applicant or an eligible, he is unsuitable for appointment, he 
shall not be further considered for appointment; and if, in like manner, 
it is shown to the satisfaction of the commission that an appointee is 
unsuitable for office he shall be removed after due procedure required 
by law ; and the Post Office Department shall, upon receipt of such sworn 
statements from patrons, suspend appointment in the case of an appli- 
cant or eligible to which such sworn statements may relate until said 
investigation is made by the Civil Service Commission and reported. 

In all cases selection for appointment shall be made with sole ref- 
erence to merit and fitness and without regard to political or religious 
considerations. No inquiry shall be made as tcuthe political or religious 
opinions or affiliations of any applicant or eligible and in conformity with 
section 10 of the civil service act no recommendation in any way based 
thereon shall be received or considered by any officer concerned in mak- 
ing selections or appointments. The attention of the writer of any such 
recommendation shall be invited to the purport of this verbal recom- 
mendation. Where it is found that there has been a violation of these 
provisions by any officer concerned in making selections or appointments, 
such fact shall be cause for the immediate removal of such officer from 
the service, and the Civil Service Commission shall make prompt report 
of any such case for appropriate action to the Postmaster General or, 
as to presidential appointees, to the President. The appointment of the 
fourth class postmaster concerned, if effected, shall be canceled. 

* The same applies to offices paying more than $180 under certain 
conditions. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 401 

positions in the competitive classified service." ^ Under the 
original regulations, made pursuant to the order of" 1908, and 
since superseded, the Post Office Department participated in 
the examinations to an extent not permitted to the appointing 
departments in the case of any other class of positions. Two 
types of examination were given, according as the office paid 
as much as or less than $500. In the examination for offices 
paying less than $500 ^ facilities for transacting the postal 
business were not considered, but on the other hand the rating 
was not competitive, the Post Office Department being allowed 
to determine, presumably on the basis of facilities for trans- 
acting the postal business, the relative standing of all candi- 
dates who had passed the examination. In the case of offices 
paying $500 or more, the examination embraced as one of 
the subjects of rating "facilities for transacting the postal 
business," the rating on this subject being determined by the 
Post Office Department and having a weight of three points 
out of ten, and this practice was continued with respect to of- 
fices paying $500, or over, under the order of 1912, extending 
the system to vacancies over the country as a whole. ^ 

Under the regulations now in force, however, which were 
promulgated in 1913 upon the extension of examination to all 
offices paying as much as $180, not only is the subject of 

^ Two cases, however, are provided for by the Executive Orders in 
which selection may be made in the discretion of the Commission even 
for these offices in the same way in which it is made where the compensa- 
tion is less than $180. These are (i) "in the event that for the exam- 
ination of any such office less than three persons appear; and (2) where 
no eligibles are secured by examination." In connection with the latter 
case it is provided that "the Civil Service Commission shall hold a sec- 
ond examination for each office which has an annual compensation of as 
much as $500, and for which no eligibles were secured as a result of the 
first examination. The Commission may also, in its discretion hold a 
second examination for any office in which no eligibles were secured as 
a result of the first examination, and which has an annual compensation 
of between $i8t) and $500." Thirty-fifth Report of the United States 
Civil Service Commission (1918), pp. log-iii. 

" Except in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, where no 
examination was given for such offices, appointment being made on the 
report of a post office inspector. 

^ Under these regulations examination was abolished for positions 
paying less than $500, such positions being filled upon the reports of post 
office inspectors, which, under the 1909 regulations, had been used only 
in the four states of Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. 



402 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

"facilities for transacting the postal business" no longer an 
element in the examination, but the department is excluded 
from any choice beyond that open to it under the rule requiring 
the certification of three names for each vacancy, shortly to 
be discussed. 

The system of examination employed for the competitive 
selection of rural carriers is also of special interest as illustrat- 
ing the practicability of applying this method to a class of per- 
sonnel more scattered perhaps than any other class of public 
employees in the world. The system of rural free delivery, 
though established earlier, was considered an experiment until 
about 1 90 1. The position of rural carrier remained in the 
excepted class until November 27, 1901, when President Roose- 
velt brought the entire service into the classified competitive 
service at one stroke. On December 27, 1901, regulations 
were promulgated to become effective from and after Feb- 
ruary I, 1902. 

The first regulations, under ^vhich the service was oper- 
ated for two years, provided a simple test consisting of filling 
out an application in the presence of a rural agent of the 
Post Office Department, acting in the capacity of an examiner 
for the Commission. This rural agent was then required to 
make an investigation of the reputation of the competitor in 
the community in which he lived, and of the wishes of the 
patrons ; his report being used as a basis upon which to deter- 
mine a relative merit of the various applicants. From the 
first it was believed that this policy was unsafe in that it af- 
forded too great an opportunity for political preference 
brought about by influence bearing upon the agent. But few 
complaints of a serious nature resulted. 

In time the extent of the service rendered it impractical to 
continue this system on account of the large expense of con- 
ducting the examinations, especially in connection with the 
changes that occurred in the established service by reason of 
deaths, resignations, and removals, which made it necessary 
for the examiner to visit many of the offices frequently, as 
often as three and four times during one year. This condi- 
tion caused the necessity for many temporary appointments 
pending the establishment of registers from which certifications 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 403 

could be made, and in a number of instances the suspension of 
the service, owing to the fact that it is difficult to get suitable 
persons to accept temporary appointment. After consultation 
with the Post Office Department, other regulations were pro- 
mulgated on December 3, 1903, to become effective February 
I, 1904. 

The new regulations, which have endured with but little 
change down to the present time, require competitive examina- 
tions, and, for a time, the administration of these examinations 
was practically under the jurisdiction of the Post Office De- 
partment. In 1906, however, the Commission was able to an- 
nounce that, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906, all 
of the work in connection with rural carrier examinations and 
certifications had been conducted by employees of the Commis- 
sion.^ 

In 191 1 the standard of the examination was made the 
same as that for clerks and letter carriers in classified post of- 
fices in order to raise the standard of appointees and to facili- 
tate transfers between these classes of positions. In addition, 
the practice of holding a separate examination for each post 
office on the routes of which a vacancy occurred was aban- 
doned in favor of examination by counties, together with the 
provision for the certification of the highest local eligible and 
the two highest eligibles from the territory served by the re- 
maining post offices in the county. 

As with other examinations for the field service, examina- 
tions are held by local examining boards where these have 
been organized, but, inasmuch as in a great many counties no 
local examining board exists, it is necessary in these counties 
to call upon the postmaster or other officer of the government 
to conduct the examination. From the apparent absence of 
criticism it may be concluded that the conduct of examinations 
at these remote points by officers not accustomed to such service 
has worked more satisfactorily than might have been antici- 
pated. 

* Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1906), p. 9. 



404 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Speed of Production of Eligible Registers. — The length of 
time which elapses between the first announcement of the ex- 
amination and the final production of the eligible register is 
another factor which is of high importance in the effective 
working of a system of recruitment through competitive ex- 
amination. When the examination is announced and appli- 
cations invited, all those who respond are presumably inter- 
ested in the position and will accept appointment if then offered. 
The longer the delay, however, before the actual establishment 
of the eligible register, and the offering of appointment to 
those selected, the greater the likelihood that some, and usually 
the most desirable of the competitors, for one reason or an- 
other, will have lost interest in the position. The methods 
employed by the Commission have reduced the time inter- 
vening between the announcement of the examination and the 
actual holding of the written or oral tests, where such tests 
are held, as much as can be expected; far more in fact than 
has been the case with many local commissions. What delay 
now occurs at this stage is so small as probably to have no 
effect on the quality of the competition. The interval which 
elapses, however, between the holding of the examination and 
the promulgation of the eligible register is in many cases far 
too great. 

The chief cause of the delay is the inadequacy of the ex- 
amining force of the Commission. Referring to this matter 
the Chief Examiner of the Commission, in 1915, said: 

It is impossible for the government to obtain the fullest 
value from the commission's work when the number of ex- 
aminers and clerks is insufficient to keep abreast of the ex- 
amining work at all times. By arranging the schedule in such 
a way that the work is distributed with a fa;ir degree of even- 
ness throughout the year, as outlined in my last report, it would 
be possible, with an adequate force, to make very much quicker 
returns from the examinations. This would be of material 
advantage to the service in several ways. Vacancies could 
be filled without long delays, and some of the best qualified 
competitors, who now become unavailable by reason of delays 
in rating their papers, would not be lost to the service. Ex- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 405 

aminations for rural carrier, fourth class postmaster, clerk and 
carrier in second class post offices, and technical and scientific 
positions can be held only after vacancies actually occur or 
are anticipated within a short time. Notwithstanding every 
effort to expedite the establishment of registers from such 
examinations, the congestion of other papers constantly on 
hand necessarily retards the work. For example, it is the de- 
sire of the Post Office Department that eligibles for rural 
carriers be provided within 60 days from the date of notifica- 
tion to the commission of a vacancy. Owing to the inade- 
quate force of examiners and clerks it has been absolutely im- 
possible to comply with the department's wishes in this respect. 
The average time elapsing between the notification of the va- 
cancy and the certification of eligibles for rural carrier, under 
present conditions, has been approximately five months.^ 

The provision of an inadequate force of examiners for the 
Commission is thus seen to be a factor of primary importance 
in the success of the competitive examination system as a 
whole. 

In eliminating unqualified candidates by the successive tests, 
and in eventually promulgating the eligible register, the Com- 
mission follows the practice common to most civil service 
commissions in this country of setting for each test a minimum 
percentage to be obtained. It will be observed that this method 
bears no relation to the prospective needs of the service. The 
number of competitors may be so large that a number far in 
excess of the anticipated needs of the service will pass each 
successive test with a percentage higher than the prescribed 
minimum. Where this occurs the labor expended in the ex- 
amination and the placing on the eligible register of a large 
proportion of those receiving lower percentages, is entirely 
wasted, since in the nature of the case the life of the register 
must expire long before any possible need for the services 
of these persons ensues. In addition to the waste of labor there 
is the corresponding delay in producing the eligible register. A 
more practical method would seem to be to fix, not a minimum 

* Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1915), p. 20. 



4o6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

percentage for the several successive tests, but a maximum 
number to be rated qualified on each of the successive tests, 
such number to be fixed with relation to the prospective needs 
of the service. This method has been used with apparently 
good results by the Canadian Civil Service Commission. 
Appeals for Re-rating. — Owing to the necessity for issuing 
ratings and making up eligible registers without any thorough- 
going review by an authority higher than the original ex- 
aminers, provision is made in the practice of the Commission, 
though nowhere mentioned in the rules, for appeal from the 
original ratings given by the Commission. Such appeal may 
be made either by the candidate, or by the department, if the 
Commission permit the appointing officer to have access to the 
papers upon which the ratings are based. Upon receipt of such 
a request for re-rating, it is referred to a sQ-called Board of 
Appeal, consisting of the Chief Examiner and two other ex- 
aminers. The recommendation of this board, reached after 
an examination of the papers and relevant facts, is transmitted 
to the Commission itself for approval. 

In the letter advising candidates of their ratings the Com- 
mission notifies the candidate of his right to appeal, but warns 
him that "if any changes are made in the ratings the chances are 
that they will be against the competitors, because, in the original 
rating, examiners are more likely to overlook errors than to 
overcharge them." A sixty-day limit is fixed for the receipt 
of appeals from competitors. No corresponding limit exists, 
however, as to the length of time, after receipt of certifica- 
tion, in which an appeal must be made by the department, and 
in practice the time limit on appeals by competitors is not 
rigidly enforced. 

Military Preference.- — After all the tests comprising an 
examination have been applied and the gradings have been es- 
tablished, the percentages obtained by each competitor on the 
various tests are weighted and computed; and, on the basis 
of the final average thus obtained, the eligible register is pre- 
pared. The arrangement of the names on the register is in 
the order of percentages, with the exception that preference 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 407 

is given to those who have had certain military services. The 
practice governing this preference is clearly of the first im- 
portance. 

The history of military preference in the federal service ex- 
tends back to 1865, when Congress enacted that 

Persons honorably discharged from the military or naval 
service by reason of disability resulting from wounds or sick- 
ness incurred in the line of duty shall be preferred for ap- 
pointments to civil offices, provided they are found to possess 
the business capacity necessary for the proper discharge of the 
duties of such office 



1 



In enacting the civil service law Congress specifically re- 
tained this preference in force by providing that "nothing herein 
contained shall be construed to take from those honorably dis- 
charged from the military and naval service any preference 
conferred" by the section just cited. ^ In 1881, prior to the 
enactment of the civil service act, the Attorney General gave 
it as his opinion that these provisions meant that qualified 
soldiers and sailors "are entitled to a preference for appoint- 
ment against other persons of equal qualifications for the 
place," ^ and, similarly, in 1889, that "it was the purpose of 
Congress to make it the duty of those making appointments 
for civil offices to give a preference, other things being equal, 
to the class of persons named in this section." * 

These opinions, it will be noted, insist only upon the right 
of the disabled soldier to be preferred to those of equal qualifi- 
cations. The civil service rules, however, went much further. 
The revision of the rules promulgated in 1888 established the 
principle that those entitled to preference should be preferred 
above all others, of whatever rating, and that, moreover, they 
should be regarded as qualified even though receiving a rating 
of 65 per cent, as against the rating of 70 per cent required 

*Act of March 3, 1865, 13 Stat. 571, reenacted as Sec. 1754 of the 
Revised Statutes. 

* Civil Service Act, Sec. 7. 

* Opinion of the Attorney General, August 13, 1881, 17 Op., 194. 

* Opinion of the Attorney General, May 24, 1889, 19 Op., 318. 



4o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of all non-preferred competitors. This principle has been re- 
tained without change. 

By these provisions the disabled ex-soldier or sailor was 
not only preferred over all others who had passed the ex- 
amination but he was permitted to pass at a lower rating, so 
that one who would have failed to qualify had he not been 
a disabled ex-soldier or sailor might be given first call upon 
the position. 

Judged on the basis of the opinions of the Attorney 
General just cited, the Commission in these rules, clearly went 
beyond the mandate of Congress. In 1910, however, the At- 
torney General, at the instance of the Commission, and partly 
in deference to its long standing practice, ruled that the act 
of 1865 required that the preference granted by it should ex- 
tend "over all others on the eligible list, irrespective of their 
rating." ^ This complete reversal of the rulings of his pre- 
decessors was put by the Attorney General on the novel ground 
that 

All persons who have passed the necessary examination 
are, under the civil service act and rules, presumed to be equally 
qualified for the office which they seek. Their rating simply 
determines the order in which they shall be certified for ap- 
pointment.^ 

Even under this opinion, however, the Commission was not 
required to permit a lower standard of qualification for those 
entitled to preference than for other competitors. The action 
of the Commission on this point is, and remains under the 
new statutory provisions about to be reviewed, entirely gratui- 
tous. 

Such was the situation until a few months after the close 
of hostilities in the recent war. In February, 1919, in enacting 
the act providing for the taking of the 1920 census. Congress 
inserted a provision having no relation to the act itself which 
required tkat 

* Opinion of the Attorney General, 1910, 28 Op., 298, 302. 
''Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. 52. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 409 

hereafter in making appointments to clerical and other posi- 
tions in the executive departments and independent govern- 
ment establishments preference shall be given to honorably dis- 
charged soldiers, sailors, and marines and widows of such, if 
they are qualified to hold such positions.^ 

It is needless to comment on the impropriety of such ex- 
tension of the principle of military preference, or to point out 
how much further it pushes the principle than did the act 
of 1865, which controlled for half a century. Preference is 
extended not merely, as in 1865, to persons discharged by rea- 
son of disability resulting from wounds or sickness incurred 
in the line of duty, but to all "honorably discharged soldiers, 
sailors and marines." A mere term of service in the Army or 
Navy is made the basis for a mandatory preference in all fed- 
eral positions. 

Further than this, the same preference is extended even to 
the widows of those in the preferred class,^ a preference hith- 
erto unknown to the law except for a provision regarding the 
retention in service of the employees of the temporary census 
office when it was placed on a permanent basis. Even here, 
however, the preference was only as to widows of "persons who 
have served as soldiers in any war in which the United States 
may have been engaged," 

By act of July 11, 1919, this provision of the census act 
was substantially reenacted.^ In addition, however, preference 
was extended "to the wives of injured soldiers, sailors, and 
marines who themselves are not qualified but whose wives are 
qualified to hold such positions." Whatever may be thought 

^Act of March 3, 1919, 40 Stat. 1293. \ 

' The qualification in the act, "if they are qualified to hold such posi- 
tions," will be noted. Whether this qualification applied . only to the 
widows of discharged soldiers, sailors, and marines or to the men them- 
selves as well, and if so how far it qualified the principle, are now imma- 
terial questions since by the act of July 11, 1919, about to be mentioned, 
this provision was in efifect repealed. 

'41 Stat. 37. The words "in the executive branch of the govern- 
ment in the District of Columbia or elsewhere" are substituted for "in 
the executive departments and in independent government establish- 
ments," and the proviso "if they are qualified to hold such positions" 
is Qmitted, ' 



4IO THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of this further extension, if confined, as it is not in terms, to 
those who received their injuries in action, it has at least the 
merit of according with the notion of reparation or compensa- 
tion which the other provisos wholly lack. 

If criticism was properly directed against the Commission 
for recommending to the President the liberal rules adopted 
for giving effect to the military preference of 1865, similar 
action under these far more sweeping rules would certainly 
be open to much more severe criticism. Precisely such changes 
in the rules were made, however, presumably upon the recom- 
mendation of the Commission. The rules were amended waiv- 
ing age requirements in the case of all persons preferred under 
the acts, and permitting such persons to qualify at a rating of 
65 per cent. In connection with the postal examinations, vet- 
erans are exempted from the height and weight requirements. 

Those wholly unnecessary concessions to the military pref- 
erence classes, which are not required by the letter of the acts 
and are not even implied in their spirit, are difficult to reconcile 
with the sweeping condemnation visited on the acts by the 
Commission in its annual report for 19 19. It says: 

The effects of so sweeping a preference, while profoundly 
demoralizing to the efficiency of the public service, will not 
immediately reach its maximum evil. The number entitled to 
preference will be at first so large that there will be a measure 
of competition among them, but a few years hence, when the 
present labor surplus has been absorbed, and when the more 
efficient workers among the soldiers have definitely deter- 
mined their vocations, there will remain chiefly the less com- 
petent to be cared for, and these would naturally take advan- 
tage of any preference that may exist. Ultimately there would 
be a small number of candidates at a more advanced age for 
each office and they would receive the appointments without 
competition to the exclusion of the most highly qualified civilian 
applicants. 

Public office should not be regarded as a gratuity, but as 
an opportunity for service to the community by those most 
fitted to perform that service. To the extent that public of- 
fice is an honor and a means of livelihood, all should enjoy 
equal opportunity to compete to gain such honor and livelihood- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICE 411 

Opposition to a preference which takes in all soldiers and 
their widows should not be considered in any sense as a dis- 
paragement of the services of our soldiers. This country has 
excelled all other nations in acknowledging the value of such 
services by honors and distinctions and by a pension system 
of unexampled liberality. 

The merit system of competitive examination rests upon 
the theory that service to the country in a civil capacity should 
be an opportunity of public usefulness offered fairly and 
equally to all competent citizens according to their individual 
capacity and fitness, under a system where every applicant 
has a "fair field and no favor, each standing on his merits as 
he is able to show them by a practical test." 

The civil service increasingly demands trained, educated, 
experienced employees, and to use the civil service as a reward 
for military service is an expensive method of pensioning. 
We want in office men who are not merely just over the line 
of availability, but the best men who can be obtained : sorted 
out by the best means; held to the highest standard of ef- 
ficiency ; made to feel it is the highest honor to serve the State. 
The future development of the United States will be dependent 
largely on the efficiency of its civilian employees. Under the 
merit system, examinations designed to test relative fitness are 
open and competitive for all American citizens who meet cer- 
tain preliminary requirements, and appointing officers are re- 
quired to fill vacancies from among the highest of these with 
sole regard to merit and fitness. The development of the sci- 
entific, technical, and professional work of the government has 
been contemporaneous with the development of examinations 
under the civil service act. It has been in large measure be- 
cause of the merit system that the departments have obtained 
the high technical attainments requisite. The exemption of 
veterans from competition will cripple the work of the depart- 
ments by forcing the appointment of veterans who barely meet 
the minimum requirements. A department needing a tech- 
nical expert will be forced to accept a soldier whose training 
enables him to meet only the minimum requirements, thus 
rejecting the most highly qualified. 

The service, no longer animated by the enthusiasm of the 
student fresh from the contact with the technical world, can- 
not fail to lose much of its progressive tendency. 

The training of an efficient civil administrative officer is 
a long and expensive process, and unless the best possible ma- 



412 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

terial is available from which to make selections the result 
will be disastrous. The supply of efficient administrators is 
extremely limited at best. Too much emphasis can not be 
laid upon the imperative necessity of highly trained adminis- 
trators and the most highly trained clerical force from which 
to develop such administrators. 

Those familiar with the federal service at Washington 
know that the service is now hampered by the retention of 
incompetents whose removal is rendered difficult by influ- 
ences which are incompatible with the efficiency of the service. 
Preferences and exemptions increasingly clog the departments 
with persons who, no matter how inefficient, are difficult to 
remove and whose retention tends to destroy the discipline of 
the service. 

Legislation creating class distinctions and preference, es- 
pecially based upon military service, is not consonant with 
the ideals of this nation, whose founders declared against the 
military being superior to the civil power and for the equality 
of opportunity for all men. Those who serve the nation in 
time of war deserve much of a grateful country. If the na- 
tion wishes to reward in a fitting manner those citizens who 
have represented it in time of national peril, there can be no 
objection raised. It cannot be called, however, a fitting re- 
ward of patriotic service to grant to those who have rendered 
military service the privilege of impairing its civil service.-^ 

The Commission recommends legislation "permitting the 
Commission to exclude from preference examinations of a 
highly technical, scientific, or professional character," a rec- 
ommendation with which it is believed no one, however ex- 
treme an advocate of military preference, will take issue. It 
also recommends legislation that will confine preference to 
disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines, giving them an addi- 
tional percentage in their rating on examination, instead of 
placing them at the head of the register. 

The exception in favor of widows of honorably discharged 
soldiers, sailors, and marines, if permitted to remain on the 
statutes, in time will have a most baneful effect upon the per- 
sonnel of the service. In the nature of the case the provision 

^ Thirty-sixth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1919), pp. xvii-xix. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 413 

will not come into operation in most cases until the woman who 
is prospectively entitled to its benefits is well advanced in 
middle life, so that beginning ten or fifteen years hence a 
large and increasing number of women past the prime of life 
who, for the most part, are without any previous experience 
in or training for the work of the government, or in any 
other related work, will flow into the subordinate positions of 
the government. 

The preference extended by the statutes and rules applies 
only to certification and not to appointment. Under the "one- 
in-three" rule shortly to be considered in detail, the appointing 
officer may pass over the veteran, or veteran's wife or widow, 
and appoint one of the two other persons certified, but the 
sentimental appeal which the veteran, or his wife or widow, 
makes to the appointing officer, or should he prove callous, 
to members of Congress and others who may bring pressure 
to bear on the appointing officer, greatly reduces the importance 
of this factor. 

Certification for Apportioned Positions. — The civil service 
act requires the rules formulated by the President to provide, 
"among other things," "as nearly as the conditions of good 
administration will warrant," that "appointments to the public 
service aforesaid [that is, to "the public service now classi- 
fied or to be classified hereunder"] in the departments at 
Washington shall be apportioned among the several States 
and Territories and the District of Columbia upon the basis 
of population as ascertained at the last preceding census." 
Pursuant to this requirement, the rules provide (Rule VII, 2) : 

2, Certification for appointment in the departments or in- 
dependent offices at Washington shall be so made as to main- 
tain, as nearly as the conditions of good administration will 
warrant, the apportionment of appointments among the sev- 
eral states and territories and the District of Columbia upon 
the basis of population: Provided, That appointments to the 
following positions shall not be so apportioned : 

In all departments and offices : Apprentice, cabinet-maker, 
carpenter, electric lineman, electric wireman, engraver, gar- 
dener, helper (if approved by the Commission), messenger 



414 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

boy, messenger girl, painter, plumber, skilled laborer (female), 
student, and telephone operator. 

In the Government Printing Office, Mail Equipment Shops, 
local offices in the District of Columbia, field service of the 
military staff departments, and at Army headquarters : All 
positions. 

In the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Operative, plate 
printer, printer's assistant, and skilled helper. 

In the Office of the Auditor for the Post Office Depart- 
ment : Operative for the audit of accounts and vouchers of the 
Postal Service by means of labor-saving devices. 

All classified positions in Washington to which the rule of 
apportionment is applied are embraced under the designation 
"the apportioned service," while those excluded by the rule 
just quoted are designated "the non-apportioned service." 

In making certification to non-apportioned positions, certifi- 
cation is made, of course, in the order of the average percentage 
without reference to the state of residence of eligibles. 

It will be observed that the rule does not require the ap- 
portionment to be applied to all positions not specifically ex- 
cepted by it, as it follows the wording of the law in requiring 
that the apportionment shall be maintained only "as nearly as 
the conditions of good administration will warrant." The 
Commission, in practice, has interpreted this rule as permitting 
it to "waive" the requirement of apportionment in any case. 
The only positions for which it has so waived the require- 
ments permanently are : sub-inspector and architectural drafts- 
man. Bureau of Yards and Docks, Navy Department; me- 
chanical draftsman, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, War 
Department ; and assistant physiologist in crop utilization. De- 
partment of Agriculture. In addition, during the war, owing 
to "the unusual demands of the service and the necessity of 
filling vacancies without delay," the apportionment was waive* 
for the War and Navy Departments, the Food Administra- 
tion, the War Trade Board, and the Treasury Department, 
and for all positions of elevator conductor.^ 

^Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. 57. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 415 

The theory of the apportionment is to give each state the 
same proportion of all apportioned positions ^ as it has of. the 
total population, but this is obviously impracticable. The 
reasons why it is not possible to make an exact apportionment 
have been stated by the Commission to be, in part, as follows : 

1. When there are no eligibles from states having the 
least share of appointments it is necessary that vacancies be 
filled by the appointment of eligibles from other states. 
Eligibles possessing technical and scientific qualifications, hav- 
ing been lacking from certain states, and male stenographers 
and typewriters, for whom there is great demand, are obtained 
in relatively greater numbers from the states which tend con- 
stantly to excess in their allotment. 

2. Whenever a person is reinstated in the apportioned serv- 
ice he is charged to the apportionment of his state, the rein- 
statement being allowed irrespective of the apportionment. 

3. Preference in appointment is given by law to veterans 
honorably discharged for disability incurred in the line of 
duty, and they are certified for appointment before all other 
eligibles, irrespective of the apportionment, and their appoint- 
ments are charged to the apportionment. 

^ Originally the law was interpreted to mean that only original ap- 
pointments to the apportioned service from open competitive examination 
should be charged to the quotas of the several states. In 1910, however, 
the position was taken that the charge to each state should be based 
on the number of persons from such state actually in the apportioned 
service at the given time. This requires that record be made of all 
separations from the apportioned service, and also that account be taken 
of those persons holding positions in the apportioned service who are 
transferred from, non-apportioned positions or who entered originally 
other than by competitive examination — a class which is, of course, rap- 
idly decreasing. The method of applying these principles is thus set 
forth in a minute of the Commission adopted April i, 1910, and amended 
April 15, 1916: "Hereafter all persons entering apportioned positions, 
whether through examination, by Executive order, legislative enactment, 
or otherwise, except those entering such positions under the temporary 
appointment rule, will be called upon to furnish proof of residence, and 
thereupon shall be charged to the apportionment; and all persons already 
in the apportioned service but not charged to the apportionment whose 
status is changed from one position to another in such service upon the 
certificate of the Commission shall, before such change of status is au- 
thorized, be required to furnish proof of residence and shall likewise be 
charged to the apportionment; and all persons already in the apportioned 
service but not charged to the apportionment who file with the Com- 
mission applications for promotion or other change of status in such 
service shall be required in connection with such applications to furnish 
proof of residence, and when such proof is so filed in the case of any 
person he shall be charged to the apportionment. The proof of residence 
shall consist of the usual personal affidavit . . . and the county officer's 
certificate under the act of July 11, 1890." 



4i6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

4. The effect of extensions of the classified service has 
been to give to some states, especially Maryland, Virginia, and 
the District of Columbia, further appointments in excess of 
their shares. 

5. From May 29, 1899, to November 26, 1901, the rules 
provided that "the provisions in relation to apportionment 
shall be waived upon the certification of the appointing officer 
that the transfer is required in the interests of good adminis- 
tration." During the 30 months while this provision of the 
rule remained in force it resulted in approximately 130 charges 
to the apportionment of the District of Columbia alone. 

In attempting to maintain the apportionment the general 
rule is to give each appointment, so far as possible, to that 
state which to date has received the smallest proportion of its 
proper quota of appointments. In determining the relative 
order of the states for this purpose three different methods 
have been used.^ The quotation below outlines the system now 
in force as explained by the Civil Service Commission, which 
states that the system shows accurately at all times the relative 
standing of the states on the basis of the total number of 
appointments actually made. 

This system and its workings can be explained by the use of 
the partial table on the following page : 

The total population of the States and Territories and the District 
of Columbia, including Alaska, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, according 
to the census of 1910, was 93,346,543. The second column shows 
for each State its per cent of the total population, and its due share 
of each appointment. 

To illustrate the working of this system it may be said that on 
March 17, 191 1, 10,182 appointments had been made and each State 
was therefore entitled to 10,182 times its share of each appointment. 
As a matter of fact, some states had received more and some less. 
The number of times its sbare of one appointment which each state 
has actually received is shown in the fifth column, and this deter- 
mines the relative order for certification under the present system. 

The third column shows the value to each state of each appoint- 
ment received by it. For example, Iowa is entitled to 2.38 per cent 

^ The explanation of the two methods formerly in use, the first until 
November 29, 1897, and the second from that date until January 6, 
191 1, is to be found in the Twenty-eighth Report of the United States 
Civil Service Commission (1911), pp. 136-38. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 417 





Per cent of 


Times share 




Times share 




total popula- 


of one ap- 


Number of 


of one ap- 


State or Ter- 


tion, which is 
also the per 


pointment in- 
volved in 


appoint- 


pointment re- 
ceived — rela- 


ritory- 


cent due of 


each appoint- 


ments re- 
ceived 


tive order 




each and all 


ment re- 


for certifica- 




appointments 


ceived 




tion 


United States 


100 


I 


10,182 


10,182.00 


Iowa 


2.383345 


41.9578 


224 


9,398.54 


Wyoming 


.156368 


639.5170 


15 


9,592.76 


Nebraska 


1.277191 


78.2968 


125 


9,787.10 


Connecticut 


1.194212 


83-7372 


117 


9,797-25 


New York 


9.763204 


10.2425 


971 


9,94546 


Ohio 


5.106906 


19.5813 


521 


10,201.86 


Pennsylvania 


8.21 1456 


12.1781 


846 


10,302.67 


West Virginia 


• 1.308156 


76.4434 


143 


10,931.41 


Maine 


.795284 


125.7412 


87 


10,939.48 



of each appointment. When it receives an appointment it receives 
41.9578 times its share of each appointment. The number in the 
third column opposite each State is, therefore, a factor to be added 
to or subtracted from the corresponding number in the fifth column 
every time a resident of the state is appointed or separated from 
the service. For example, an appointment given to Nebraska in- 
creases its number in the fifth column by 78.2968, or to 9,865.39, and 
drops it below Connecticut in order of certification. 

On March 17, 191 1, the United States as a whole had received 
10,182 appointments, which is 10,182 times its share of one appoint- 
ment. Any State which had received more than 10,182 times its 
share of one appointment was in excess, while any that had received 
less than 10,182 times its share of one appointment was in arrears. 
The number of appointments to which a state is entitled at any time 
may be found by multiplying the total number of appointments by 
its per cent of the total population. The per cent of its share which 
any State has received may be found by dividing the number in the 
fifth column showing the total number of times its share of one ap- 
pointment received by the total number of appointments received by 
all the States and Territories. 1 

The relative order of the states being thus determined, the 
next appointment would be made, if regard were had solely 
to the apportionment, and if practicable, from the state at the 
head of the Hst, and if no candidate was available from that 

* Ibid., p. 138. 



4i8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

state then from the state next on the list, and so on; and this 
was at one time the procedure. In recent years, however, the 
Commission has adopted a method which qualifies somewhat 
the strict and unmitigated application of the rule of apportion- 
ment. Its procedure now has two variations; one being ap- 
plied to all scientific and technical positions and to positions 
of stenographer and typewriter paying more than $900 a year, 
while the second method is applied to all other apportioned 
positions. The first method is as follows : ^ 

With the view of deferring the certification of eligibles 
with very low ratings from technical, scientific, and profes- 
sional registers until practically all those with better ratings 
had been certified, the Commission, in 1910, established the 
following method of certification for scientific, technical, and 
professional positions and positions of stenographer and type- 
writer paying more than $900 : Dividing the States and Ter- 
ritories into two groups, the first group constituted those that 
have not received their proportionate share of appointments 
and the second group those that have received more than their 
proportionate share, certification is made in the following or- 
der : ( I ) all eligibles in order of average percentage from the 
whole group of states in arrears with averages down to and 
including 75; (2) in like manner from the whole group of 
states in excess except the two last states and the District of 
Columbia; (3) from the whole group of states in arrears down 
to and including 73 ; (4) in like manner as in (2) down to and 
including 73; (5) all remaining eligible in order of average 
percentage from the whole group of states in arrears; (6) the 
same as (2) and (4) of all remaining eligibles; (7) in order 
of their standing under the apportionment from the last two 
states and the District of Columbia. 

The method which is applied to all other apportioned posi- 
tions is as follows : 

I. Certification is made of the highest eligibles from one- 
half of the entire group of States and Territories that have 
not received their full share of the total number of appoint- 
ments actually made (if the number of such States and Ter- 

* Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1912), p. 19. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 419 

ritories is uneven, the lesser number is taken) and this method 
is followed until all the eligibles from such states and terri- 
tories have been certified with average percentages of as much 
as 80. 

2. After all the eligibles described in ( i ) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is/ made in the same manner 
from one-half of the remainder of such group of States and 
Territories. 

3. After all the eligibles described in (2) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made in the same manner 
from the remainder of such group of States and Territories. 

4. After all the eligibles described in (3) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made as described in (i) 
above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as 
much as 75. 

5. After all the eligibles described in (4) above have 
thus been certified, then certification is made as described in 
(2) above down to and including eligibles with percentages of 
as much as 75. 

6. After all the eligibles described in (5) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made as described in (3) 
above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as 
much as 75. 

7. After all the eligibles described in (6) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made from the other States, 
in their order under the apportionment of eligibles with an 
average percentage of as much as 75 down to the two States 
having the largest excess of their share of appointments and 
the District of Columbia. 

8. After all the eligibles described in (7) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made of the highest remain- 
ing eligibles from the entire group of States in arrears of their 
share, in the order of percentage, who have percentages of 
as much as y^i- 

9. After all the eligibles described in (8) above have thus 
been certified, then certification is made as described in (7) 
above down to and including eligibles with percentages of as 
much as 73. 

10. After all the eHgibles have thus been certified with 
averages of as much as 73 down to the two States that have 
received the greatest excess of their share and the District of 
Columbia, then certification is made of the highest remaining 
eligibles from the entire group of States and Territories in ar- 



420 THE FEDERAL SICKVICE 

rears of their share; and after all cli^ibles from such j^roup 
of States and Territories have been certified, then certification 
is made from each State and Territory in its order under the 
apportionment.^ 

The following explanation of the reason for this variation 
has been given by the Secretary to the Commission : ^ 

Jn the ordinary clerical registers, a difference of a few 
points in rating is not so important as in the case of regis- 
ters of experts and stenographers and typewriters. Nearly 
every State and Territory is represented on the ordinary reg- 
isters, but for most of the technical registers a few states only 
fintiish eligibk's. The i)resent mciluxl insures the certification 
of most of the cligil)les with the iiiglK-r ratings before those 
with lower averages, while at the same time the principle of 
the apportionment is jealously guarded. 

Stringent regulations governing proof of residence of 
competitors are ])rescribe(l to ])revent frauds on the a|)portion- 
ment wherein candidates claim residence in stales which are 
in arrears and thereby secure preference in appointment. The 
civil service law itself provides, in the same clause which 
enacts the principle of apportionment, "that every application 
for an examination shall contain, among other things, a state- 
ment under oath, setting forth his or her actual bona fide resi- 
dence at the time of making the application, as well as how 
long he or she has been a resident of such place." In addi- 
tion Congress ])rovide(l in 1890 that: 

Hereafter every application for examination before the 
Civil Service Commission for ai)i)ointmcnt in the departmental 
service in the District of Columbia shall be accompanied l)y a 
certificate of an officer, with his official seal attached, of the 
county and state of which the applicant claims to be a citizen, 
that such ajiplicant was, at the time of making such applica- 
tion, an actual and hnna fide resident of said county, and had 
been such resident for a period of not less than six months next 
prcreding.'* 

'Tliirly-fiflli Ivcputt of llic I'liilcd Stales Civil Service Covmnission 
(1918), p. W. 

*1n a niciiioraiKliiin to llie Instiliilo for (loverninenl Roscarcn. 

"A^t pf July '^( J^'/^ '-^^ ^^■'■^^- -^^- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICI-: 421 

In addition Congress, in 1909, enacted the restrictive re- 
quirement that : 

All examinations of applicants for positions in the govern- 
ment service, from any state or territory, shall be had in the 
state or territory in which such applicants reside, and no per- 
son shall be elij^n'ble for such examination or appointment un- 
less he or she shall have been actually domiciled in such state 
or territory for at least one year previous to such examination. 

This provision, because of its context, is interpreted as 
applying to examinations for apportioned positions onlyJ 

Regardless of what may be thought of the wisdom of the 
whole system of ai)portionment, this last provision seems un- 
duly restrictive. Since the apportionment rule applies even to 
technical positions, it goes to the palpably absurd limit of 
barring from examination a ])rosi)cctive applicant who has 
moved into a state within a year, perhaps in |)ursuance of his 
profession or technical occupation, and is therefore unable to 
establivsh the required actual domicile in such slate or territory 
for at least one year i)revious to the examination. 

The Commission has even gone so far as to require com- 
petitors in "nonassembled" examinations to show that they 
have been actually domiciled in the state or territory in which 
they reside for at least one year previous to the examinalion. 

Yet it has ruled in another connection, and Ihe ruling has 
been concurred in by ihc Attorney Ccncral, thai "these ex- 
aminations are not 'had' at any particular place and Congress 
in enacting this statute seems to have had in mind the 
examinations referred to in Section 3 of the Civil Service 
Act, held by local boards of examiners." " This lu-ing (he 
case the provision that no person shall be eligible for "such" 

*Act of July 2, T909, 26 St;it. .3. Durinjr the war tliis restriction 
was waived by Congress (Kesfiliitioii of Marc.li 27, 1918, 40 Stat. 459) 
in order to permit of the examination, principally at Washington, of 
large numbers of persons who had come to Washington from distant 
points to secure employment with the government in ignorance of the 
statute requiring them to he examined in their state of resid(Micc. 

^Thirty-fifth Kepfjrl (jf the United States Civil Service (Jommission 

(1918), p. 20. 



422 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

examination or appointment unless he or she shall have 
been actually domiciled in "such" state or territory for 
at least one year previous to "such" examination, vrould seem 
to have no application whatever to a non-assembled examina- 
tion. 

The Commission apparently has displayed at this point, as it 
has at some others, an almost too tender regard for the re- 
strictions which Congress has enacted. It is not intended to 
imply that the Commission should not scrupulously observe 
all statutory directions enacted by Congress; but if a statute 
is fairly susceptible of an interpretation more in accord with 
the requirements of sound personnel administration than an 
absolutely literal construction would be, it is submitted that 
it is the Commission's duty to adopt the former interpretation. 
The reluctance of the Commission to do so both in this and 
in other connections is doubtless due, in large measure, to a 
feeling on its part, perhaps amply warranted by its experience, 
that not a few Congressmen are latently hostile to the whole 
regime of open competition, and that any deviation from the 
strictest obedience to the letter of the statute may be seized 
upon and made much of by these Congressional critics. 

The general question of the wisdom of the apportionment 
system was discussed by the Civil Service Commission in its 
report for the fiscal year 1912, in which it said: 

It has been said that under the apportionment persons re- 
ceive appointment who are inferior in qualijfications to those 
who would be obtained if competition were as wide as the 
country; that the apportionment is distinctly an interference 
with the merit system, is inconsistent with it, and that it is 
harmful to the public service in that so far as it operates at 
all, the highest in the examinations often fail of appointment; 
that considered purely from an economical standpoint the ap- 
portionment cannot be justified; that government appoint- 
ments should be distributed as far as at all practicable on a 
basis of efficiency, and that there is nothing in the natural dis- 
tribution of population that corresponds to or coincides with 
the distribution of trained capacity. 

The distribution of appointments among the states, how- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 423 

ever, is in accord with our federal system of government, under 
which all the people from all the states are entitled to serve 
the government. The requirement of an apportionment pro- 
ceeds upon the theory that the competition for appointment is 
not from all the states together but from all those within each 
state separately, the government being representative of the 
several states according to their population. A fundamental 
principle in the establishment of the federal government was 
not only the representation of every state but a representation 
which should embody an integral portion of the state itself. 
Thus Senators and Representatives are not chosen at large but 
must be inhabitants of the state in which they are chosen, an 
intended departure from the British system. The representa- 
tive feature was established, based upon inhabitancy of the 
state as the nearest practical approximation to the personal 
participation of the whole people in the government. The 
theory in the civil service law is that every citizen, no matter 
how humble his condition or in what part of the country he 
may reside, may justly feel that as a citizen of a state he has 
equally with the citizen of every other state a commensurate 
interest and right to participation in the general government. 
Thus it is regarded as an injustice by the people of a state or 
section of the country that another state or section should 
receive a share of the representation greatly disproportioned to 
its population. 

President Washington enumerated among the three things 
essential in appointments that in as equal a proportion as might 
be they should be given to persons belonging to the different 
states in the Union. This principle of apportionment, open- 
ing to all the door to the public service, has been adopted by 
Congress upon every occasion where it would be applicable. 
Illustration of this will be found in an act of 1875 relating 
to appointments in the Treasury Department, and in the laws 
regulating the apportionment of cadets at West Point and of 
midshipmen at the Naval Academy. Executive orders also 
require an apportionment of appointments among the states in 
the appointments made through examination in the Diplomatic 
and Consular Services. These laws and orders bear out the 
spirit and genius of our institutions — that this is a govern- 
ment by the people acting through their several states, and 
that representation in the common government shall be appor- 
tioned among the several states by their inhabitants serving 
in the legislative and executive departments, in the Army and 



424 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Navy, and in our foreign services, all sections of the Union 
thus contributing to the labors of the government. 

Not only is this a matter of inherent right upon the part 
of the states, but it is in accord with a wise public policy and 
with the progress in education and patriotic achievement among 
the people of the several states. Distribution and appoint- 
ments among the states bring to the seat of government per- 
sons who represent the views of every community and who be- 
come acquainted with the operations of the national govern- 
ment, all sections of the Union thus participating in its work, 
and this in turn inspiring an interest therein among all the 
people. In this way every section, however remote, is brought 
into contact with the central government, intelligence and in- 
terest regarding its operations are diffused, patriotism pro- 
moted, the growth of sectionalism prevented, unreasonable 
prejudices overcome, and an enlightened understanding pro- 
moted respecting the aims and purposes of our common coun- 
try. It is, therefore, the part of wisdom that to the people of 
every state should be secured the opportunity, as far as they 
are willing and as far as they can furnish the needed charac- 
ter and capacity, to enter a competition, not with people within 
their own states, to participate proportionately with the people 
of the other states in the conduct of the government of which 
their state is a constituent. 

In this gathering at Washington of clerks representing 
every part of the country, associated in the common business 
of government, sympathetic relations are established and in- 
formation diffused which extends to every part of the country, 
vitalizing the central government and securing popular sup- 
port for it. If further reasons were necessary for a contin- 
uance of the apportionment provision of the law, there might 
be mentioned the possible effect upon the service of its dis- 
continuance. If the apportionment provision were repealed, 
in the very nature of things an ever increasing proportion of 
appointments would go to eligibles residing in the District of 
Columbia and nearby states. As such a condition continued 
and increased, it is believed the effect upon the service in the 
department at Washington would be seriously detrimental, 
occasioned by lack of general interest in such service and finally 
in consequent lack of adequate appropriations to carry it 
on.^ 

^ Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1912), pp. 19-21. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 425 

Examination of this defense of the principles of apportion- 
ment, the most extensive to be found anywhere in official 
sources, discloses that not one of the objections to the ap- 
portionment which are set out in its opening paragraph are 
met in its subsequent discussion. All that the substantive part 
of this quotation goes to establish is that the principle of ap- 
portionment is basically and inherently desirable, a contention 
which will hardly be disputed. The practical question is how 
far may this beneficent principle, which is not in and of itself 
a principle of personnel administration at all, be carried in 
actual application without impairing the efficiency of the 
service. The Commission urges that it is "the part of wis- 
dom that to the people of every state should be secured the. 
opportunity . . . to participate proportionately with the peo- 
ple of other states in the conduct of the government of which 
every state is a constituent ... as far as they can furnish the 
needed character and capacity." It is precisely this qualifica- 
tion which is the subject of dispute. Does or does not the pres- 
ent application of the principle of apportionment result in the 
appointment of persons who cannot furnish the needed char- 
acter and capacity as well as can other persons who are barred 
from appointment ? 

It is doubtless improbable that under present methods the 
apportionment works for any serious impairment of the caliber 
of the persons appointed to the ordinary run of clerical or 
routine positions for which qualifications are more or less 
standardized and for which a reasonable abundance of quali- 
fied persons can be obtained in almost every state of the 
Union. With respect to technical and scientific positions, how- 
ever, the situation is far otherwise. Here it not infrequently 
happens that a whole register contains but few names and that 
the variation in capacity between the higher and lower names 
on the register is wide. Where this is the case, the preference 
in certification given to eligibles from states in arrears in 
their quota may serve to bring within the certification the 
lowest persons on the list, while excluding from it the highest 
persons. Where such a result ensues it can hardly be disputed 



426 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

that the effect of the apportionment is extremely destructive 
of efficiency in the service and far oiitweiglis any general ad- 
vantages which may be claimed for the principle of apportion- 
ment in the abstract. 

Administrative officers are undoubtedly considerably dis- 
satisfied with the results of the apportionment system. They 
commonly regard it, however, as so firmly established a fea- 
ture of the personnel system that they are seldom moved 
to make objection to it officially. One of the few instances 
in which this has been done is found in the annual report of 
the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for 1910, in which he. 
says, referring to the provision requiring the apportionment : ^ 

It is very doubtful whether the benefits of this particular 
provision of law outweigh its manifest disadvantages. While 
the civil service tests undoubtedly furnish the best guaranty for 
appointment upon merit, the demand for geographical distri- 
bution necessarily restricts the freedom of choice. For some 
reasons it may be desirable to have the employees of the civil 
branch of the government represent the various states and 
sections of the country, but it is a question whether such a pol- 
icy is of sufficient importance to outweigh the tests which the 
law provides to determine the merits and qualifications of ap- 
plicants. If the service is to be maintained on that high plane 
of efficiency which is so urgently demanded, it seems only fair 
to grant to the departments the privilege of selecting the per- 
sons who have obtained the highest marks on examination, 
and not be compelled to consider eligibles with poor markings 
simply because they claim legal residence in states whose 
quotas are not in excess. 

It is to be remembered that this comment was made at a 
time when the method of applying the apportionment was such 
as to necessitate the appointment of the lowest eligible on 
the list, having perhaps only the minimum mark required for 
passing, in preference to the eligible first on the list, if the 
lowest eligible came from a state further in arrears than the 
highest eligible. The method of applying the apportionment 

^ Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1910). P- 138- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 427 

now in force, as above described, gives less weight to the 
apportionment and greater weight to the order of the ehgibles 
on the register. The criticism made by the Secretary of Com- 
merce and Labor would by no means be as applicable to the 
present method of applying the apportionment as it was to 
the method in force at the time he wrote. 

That the Commission itself has more recently weakened in 
its enthusiasm for the apportionment is evidenced by state- 
ments appearing in its report for the fiscal year 19 18, intro- 
ductory to a statement of those instances already referred to 
in which, because of the war emergency, the requirement of 
apportionment was waived for some of the important war 
agencies. After explaining why the waiving of the apportion- 
ment was necessary to prevent delay under the emergency 
condition obtaining, it goes on to make the general statement 
that 

The enforcement of the apportionment rule also frequently 
results in the appointment of persons barely making a passing 
grade in the examination in preference to persons from states 
which have already received their share of appointments who 
obtained higher ratings. The waiver of the apportionment, 
Mfhich would permit the appointment of many local eligibles 
who would not otherwise have been reached, would not only 
result in a more expeditious filling of vacancies but would ac- 
complish the appointment of persons familiar with local con- 
ditions who would be more content in their employment and 
more desirable in many ways. . , .^ 

This statement is made, however, in an obscure place in 
the appendix to the Commission's report, and without the re- 
sponsibility of any particular individual. If it correctly rep- 
resents the views of the Commission on the apportionment 
at this time, it should have been given greater prominence. 

Finally, it should be pointed out that the apportionment 
system adds greatly to the work and expense of the recruit- 
ment system, both through the extra labor that it entails and 

^Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. 98. 



428 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

through the frequent necessity for holding examinations at 
many different points. 

Restriction of Certification of Members of Same Family. 
— Another pecuHarity connected with certification to positions 
in the classified competitive service arises from Section 9 of 
the civil service act, which provides that "whenever there are 
already two or more members of a family in the public service 
in the grades covered by this act, no other member of such 
family shall be eligible to the appointment to any of said 
grades." Accordingly in the notice of rating which the Com- 
mission sends to applicants upon the establishment of an eligible 
register, it calls attention to this provision of the law and warns 
the eligible of the necessity of promptly notifying the Com- 
mission of the appointment of any member of the eligible's 
family to the service. 

The enforcement of this section has given rise to some 
niceties in legal reasoning as to the exact meaning of the 
term "family," it having on one occasion been ruled by the 
Attorney General that one who had removed from the parental 
roof had "severed the family relationship and become, as it 
were, independent thereof," and had thus "ceased to be a 
member of the 'family' within the meaning of the law." Into 
these subtleties it would be of no value to enter in this dis- 
cussion. 

It is difficult to see what substantial purpose is served 
by this provision of the law. At the time it was enacted it 
was doubtless intended to assist the general purpose of pre- 
venting appointment for political or personal reasons, but 
the present development of the methods of selection renders 
such an excess of caution unnecessary. The continuance of 
the rule cannot be said to work any positive harm, but it does 
occasionally work hardship and inconvenience, both to appli- 
cants and to the service, and it occasions a not inconsiderable 
amount of clerical labor. Moreover, the difficulty of enforcing 
this rule and the variety of ways in which it may be evaded 
are so great that inevitably its enforcement is unequal. It 
also works unjust discrimination in many cases where it is 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 429 

enforced. On all counts it would seem that its repeal is de- 
sirable. 

The "Three-Name" Certification Rule. — As has already 
been seen, the rule governing certification from those lists 
where certification is required provides (Rule VII, i, a) that 
there shall be certified "a number of names sufficient to permit 
the nominating or appointing officer to consider three names in 
connection with each vacancy" ; and, where appointment direct 
from the register is permitted, a corresponding number of 
names is available to the appointing officer.^ The intent of 
these provisions is more fully defined by the rules as follows 
(Rule VII, I, b) : 

The nominating or appointing officer shall make selection 
for the first vacancy from not more than the highest three 
names certified, or on the register, with sole reference to merit 
and fitness, unless objection shall be made, and sustained by 
the commission, to one or more of the persons certified, for 
any of the reasons stated in Rule V, section 4. For the sec- 
ond vacancy he shall make selection from not more than the 
highest three remaining, who have not been within his reach 
for three separate vacancies, or against whom objection has 
not been made and sustained in the manner indicated. The 
third and any additional vacancies shall be filled in like man- 
ner. More than one selection may be made from the three 
names next in order for appointment, or from two names if 
the register contains only two, subject to the requirements 
of section 2 of this rule as to the apportionment. Any eligible 
who has been within reach for three separate vacancies in his 
turn may be subsequently selected, subject to the approval of 

^ It is further provided by Rule VIII, paragraph 3, that "when there 
is at least one eligible and not more than two eligibles on a register for 
any grade in which a vacancy exists, the commission shall, upon requisi- 
tion from the proper appointing officer, certify the name of the one 
eligible or the names of the two eligibles, which shall be considered by 
the appointing officer with a view to probational appointment; and if the 
appointing officer shall elect not to make probational appointment from 
such certificate of less than three names, then if temporary appointment 
is required, it shall be made from such certificate unless reasons sat- 
isfactory to the commission are given why such appointment should 
not be made. Such temporary api)ointment may continue until three 
eligibles are provided. If selection is not made from the certificate for 
either probational or temporary appointment under the provisions of this 
section, then temporary appointment, if required, may be made under 
the provisions of section 2 of this rule." 



430 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the commission, from the certificate on which his name last 
appeared, if the condition of the register has not so changed as 
to place his in other respects beyond reach of certification. 

It will be observed that the rule provides that the appoint- 
ing officer must make his selection from the three names certi- 
fied for each given vacancy, "unless objections shall be made 
and sustained by the Commission to one or more of the per- 
sons certified for any of the reasons stated in Rule V, Section 
4." The reasons set out in the rule referred to are 

(a) Dismissal from the service for delinquency or mis- 
conduct within one year next preceding the date of his appli- 
cation; (b) physical or mental unfitness for the position for 
which he applies; (c) criminal, infamous, dishonest, immoral, 
or notoriously disgraceful conduct; (d) intentionally making 
a false statement in any material fact, or practicing any de- 
ception or fraud in securing examination, registration, cer- 
tification, or appointment; (e) refusal to furnish testimony as 
required by Rule XIV ;^ (/) the habitual use of intoxicating 
beverages to excess. 

While these permissible reasons for objecting to an eligible 
are, for the most part, of a kind involving a serious reflection 
on his character, it will be noted that one of them specifies 
merely "physical or mental unfitness for the position for which 
he applies." A strict interpretation of this provision of the 
rule by the Commission doubtless would require the appoint-| 
ing officer who proposed to exclude one of the three names 
certified to him and thus secure the certification of an addi- 
tional name to show that the person objected to was actually 
wholly unfit. In practice, however, the Commission has in- 
terpreted this provision liberally, especially in connection with 
positions of a higher grade, and has permited appointing offi- 
cers to exclude from consideration the names of persons who, 
while in no wise positively unfit for the positions, have been 
alleged by the appointing officer to be lacking in peculiar 
qualifications thought to be necessary for the position. The 

^ Rule XIV refers to testimony in regard to matters arising under 
the civil service act. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 431 

effect of this practice has been, in substance, to grant to ap- 
pointing officers in these cases a choice from the first four or 
even five at the head of the Hst. No provision is made for 
notifying an eHgible of the exception thus taken to him by the 
appointing officer. 

The practice in question presents elements of danger, since 
it is calculated to throw suspicion on the honesty of the entire 
competitive system. In an examination for a position requir- 
ing peculiar qualifications, only a small number of eligibles is 
likely to have been secured in any event, so that the allowance 
of so wide a discretion to the appointing officer may in effect 
set at naught the relative ratings established by the examina- 
tion and tend to approximate the examination to a mere pass 
examination. 

The rule requires that in any case selection shall be made 
from among those certified or on the register "with sole refer- 
ence to merit and fitness." No procedure is provided, how- 
ever, by which the decision of the appointing officer to pass 
over the first or the first two names certified may be reviewed ; 
and in practice this provision is wholly unenforceable.^ With 
reference to the appointment of rural carriers, the executive 
order of December 30, 191 1, somewhat elaborates this point. 
It provides that 

In all cases selections shall be made with sole reference 
to merit and fitness and without regard to political considera- 
tions. No inquiry shall be made as to the political or religious 
opinions or affiliations of any eligible, and no recommendation 
in any way based thereon shall be received, considered, or 
filed by any officer concerned in making selections or appoint- 
ments. Any such recommendations in writing forwarded to 
any such officer shall be at once returned to the writer with 
attention invited to the purport of this order, and attention 

* Moreover, the rules (Rule I, 2) prohibit generally any discrimina- 
tion on account of political or religious reasons, and the Commission 
may investigate a selection where it is charged, with offer of proof, that 
this provision of the rule has been violated. As in all other violations 
of the rule against discrimination, however, the Commission's power 
goes no further than investigation, and so far as the particular matter 
under discussion is concerned, this provision of the rules is virtually a 
dead letter. 



432 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

hereto shall be similarly directed in connection with any verbal 
recommendations. Where it is found that there has been a 
violation of these provisions by any officer concerned in mak- 
ing selections or appointments, such fact shall be cause for the 
immediate removal of such officer from the service, and the 
commission shall make prompt report of any such case for 
appropriate action to the Postmaster General, or, as to presi- 
dential appointees, to the President. The appointment of the 
rural carrier concerned, if effected, shall be canceled.^ 

The provision allowing the appointing officer complete dis- 
cretion in the selection of one out of three candidates is com- 
mon to most civil service systems. The theory is, of course, 
that in view of the mechanical nature of the ratings established 
by competitive examination, the appointing officer should be 
given some leeway in making the appointment. With reference 
to positions requiring special qualifications, moreover, it is 
urged that where the examination has been of a more general 
character, this latitude permits him to select from among those 
near the head of the list that eligible whose qualifications most 
nearly approximate the special qualifications desired. 

The practical objection to this practice is that it opens the 
door to political and personal influence and permits of pres- 
sure being brought to bear upon the appointing officer to pass, 
over the candidates higher on the list in favor of those lower. 
To ascertain to what extent such political influence is at the 
present time a factor in determining the selections from eligible 
lists is difficult. In all probability it is but a minor factor in 
appointments to positions in Washington, because the candi- 
dates are remote from the seat of operations and have usually 
little facility for keeping in sufficiently close touch with de- 
velopments in respect to the lists upon which their names 
appear to permit of their bringing political pressure to bear 
at the proper time or upon the proper appointing officer. In 
appointments to local offices, however, the situation is other- 
wise, and it is notorious that here, where the eligibles on the 
list have an opportunity to keep in touch with vacancies as 

^ Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. 55. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 433 

they occur, political or personal influence is frequently brought 
to bear upon the local appointing officer by one or more of 
the three eligible candidates. 

A rule which has worked well in some local commissions, 
is that the eligible highest on the list should be appointed, 
unless reasons are given satisfactory to the Civil Service Com- 
mission why the appointment of a lower eligible would be to 
the interest of the service. There is nothing mechanical about 
this rule. It does not compel the appointing officer to appoint 
a person whom he deems unsuitable, but it requires that he be 
willing to make his opinion of that person a matter of record 
and that the reasons for his opinion be sufficiently explicit and 
well founded to bring conviction to an impartial critic such 
as the Civil Service Commission. Such a rule, if administered 
with discretion by the Civil Service Commission, meets every 
requirement of good administration and yet eliminates almost 
completely the play of personal and political factors. It is 
worthy of note that in his order of March 2, 191 7, establishing 
a system of competitive examination for filling certain classes 
of vacancies in presidential postmasterships, President Wilson 
did not adopt the traditional "one in three" rule, but provided 
instead that the Postmaster General, after the completion of 
the examination, should "submit to the President the name of 
the highest qualified eligible for appointment to fill such 
vacancy, unless it is established that the character or residence 
of such applicant disqualifies him for appointment." The order 
does not make clear how or by whom it is to be "established" 
that the character of the applicant is unsuitable,^ but at least 
the principle is recognized that the highest eligible on the list 
is entitled to appointment in the absence of positive disqualifi- 
cation. 

The extent to which the one in three privilege, even in these 
latter days, may be made an instrument of politics was in- 
dicated in 1 91 3 by a statement issued by the Postmaster Gen- 

^ In practice the Post Office Department has assumed the right to pass 
over the highest eHgible as unsuitable ; but this privilege has been exercised 
in but few cases. 



434 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

eral, relative to the policy of the Post Office Department in 
making appointments of fourth class postmasters and of rural 
carriers. This statement was called for at this time because 
of the order of President Wilson, dated May 7, 191 3, re- 
quiring that all fourth class postmasterships be filled through 
open competitive examination (as against the orders of Presi- 
dent Taft, dated November 30, 1908, and October 15, 1912, 
by which all fourth class postmasters then in the service who 
had been appointed without examination were "covered" into 
the service and the competitive method applied only to those 
who might be appointed subsequently). The Postmaster Gen- 
eral said : ^ 

In answering an inquiry recently as to what influence po- 
litical affiliations would have in fourth class postmaster and 
rural carrier appointments, Postmaster General Burleson stated 
that he desired it distinctly understood that It Is his purpose 
to carry out the intent of President Wilson's order that these 
positions be filled in accordance with both the spirit and letter 
of the civil service law. The Postmaster General added that 
he does not delegate the power of appointment, nor in any 
case is selection made simply upon or because of a recom- 
mendation of a Member of Congress. He stated further that 
he has a duty to perform in making selections under the civil 
service rules ; that it is his desire to select in every case the most 
efficient man obtainable, and that In furtherance of such de- 
sire he is using, and intends to continue to use, every available 
means of ascertaining the best of the men certified to him by 
the Civil Service Commission. In his efforts to secure the 
most efficient man for the Postal Service, and as part of the 
evidence upon which he reaches his conclusion, it is his prac- 
tice to ask the Member of Congress in whose district the va- 
cancy exists to advise him relative to the character and fitness 
of the three eligibles. In doing so the Postmaster General 
calls upon the Member, not in his capacity as a member of 
any political party, but solely as the representative of the com- 
munity, regardless of political affiliations; and to emphasize 
his purpose in this respect, the Postmaster General in asking 
the Member of Congress for his recommendation calls special 

^ Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 

(1916), p. XV. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICE 435 

attention to the fact that under existing Executive Orders se- 
lections must be made by the department with sole reference to 
merit and fitness, and any recommendation made to him must 
be based solely upon such considerations and without refer- 
ence to the political affiliations of the eligibles. And further 
he has directed that all letters recommending appointments 
based upon political considerations be returned to the writers. 
The Postmaster General states that he is in earnest in his ef- 
forts to obtain the best men regardless oF their political opin- 
ions, and whenever he finds in any case that he has been misled 
because of recommendations made for political reasons, the 
fourth class postmaster or rural carrier so appointed will be 
promptly removed from office. 

. Following are his directions to the First Assistant Post- 
master General: 

In selecting persons from the eligible registers furnished 
by the Civil Service Commission for appointment as fourth 
class postmasters it is my desire that the person with the high- 
est rating be chosen, unless good and valid reasons are sub- 
mitted to the department showing that this would not be in 
the best interest of the service. If reasons are submitted 
sufficient to make the selection of the first eligible inadvisable, 
then it is my desire that the person with the next highest rat- 
ing be chosen, unless good and valid reasons are submitted to 
show the inadvisability of his appointment. In such case the 
third eligible may be selected. In no case should the second 
or third eligible be chosen unless the appointment of one of 
the higher-standing eligibles has been shown to be inadvisable 
from the standpoint of the greatest efficiency in the Postal 
Service. In reaching conclusions as to the most desirable ap- 
pointments an endeavor should be made to select persons whose 
business and temperamental equipment is likely to reflect credit 
on the Postal Service. 

To enter into a discussion of the spirit in which this order 
was actually carried out would be fruitless. No data are avail- 
able on which such a discussion could be predicated confidently 
and the unsuccessful attempt of the National Civil Service 
Reform League to obtain such data will be referred to in an- 
other connection. Statistics published by the Commission, 



436 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

designed to show the number of instances in which the first, 
second, or third ehgible was appointed, and in which the ex- 
isting incumbent was reappointed, were the subject of dis- 
agreement even among the members of the Commission.^ It 
is sufficient here to point out that the exercise in this way of 
the discretion entrusted to the appointing officer under the 
one in three rule is Hkely to resuh in the entrance of pohtical 
considerations on a wide scale. 

It should be noted that under the regulations promulgated 
to carry out the original order of President Roosevelt in 1908, 
calling for the competitive selection of fourth class postmasters 
in the northeastern section of the country, it was provided 
that "the person's name that stands at the head of the register 
shall be selected for the first appointment, the next highest 
for the next appointment, and so forth." ^ This provision of 
the regulations was made by the Commission pursuant to an 
agreement with the Post Office Department which waived 
the right granted it by the rules to have three names certified 
to it for each vacancy. When the competitive system was 
extended by President Taft's order of 1912 to the fourth 
class postmasters over the country as a whole, this provision 
of the regulations was not retained and the rule requiring three 
names was thus restored to operation. 

In the selection of rural carriers the same development has 
taken place. Under the regulations made pursuant to the orig- 
inal order by which the selection of rural carriers was placed 
upon a competitive basis — the order of 1902 — but one eligible 
was certified for each vacancy, the regulation providing that 
"the person whose name stands at the head of the register 
is certified to the Post Office Department for the first appoint- 
ment, the next highest for the next appointment, etc." ^ This 

^ The figures presented by the majority of the Commission appear 
on pages xvii and xviii, Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil 
Service Commission, while those presented by the dissenting member of 
the Commission, Commissioner Craven, appear on pages xxv and xxvi. 

* Regulations of January and February, 1909, Sec. 8, Twenty-sixth 
Report of the United States Civil Service Commission (1909), p. 25. 

^ Twenty-first Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1904), p. 117. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 437 

regulation was promulgated by the Commission under an agree- 
ment with the Postmaster General by which he, as appointing 
officer, waived the right secured him by the rules of having 
three names certified to him for each vacancy. Commenting 
on this feature of the regulations the Commission stated : ^ 

It is recognized that it is possible and very probable that 
an unsuitable person may obtain vouchers which appear to be 
proper, may file an application which meets the requirements 
of the regulations, and may pass an examination with a mark 
which would place his name at the head of the register of 
eligibles. As a safeguard against the appointment of such a 
person the following provision is made : 

Whenever five or more patrons of a rural free delivery 
route submit to the rural carrier examining board, in writing 
over their own signatures, sworn statements that an appli- 
cant is unsuitable for appointment, giving specific reasons 
therefor, each of the heads of the families may be requested 
by the rural carrier examining board to express an opinion 
as to the fitness of such applicant. If, upon the evidence thus 
submitted, it is shown to the satisfaction of the Commission 
that the applicant is not suitable for appointment his name 
shall be stricken from the register. 

In this way the service is protected more fully than if a 
selection should be made from among the three highest, as in 
the other branches of the service, for it may be reasonably pre- 
sumed that the patrons of a rural service are ever watchful 
of their own interest. 

By an executive order issued December 30, 191 1, the Presi- 
dent ordered that this provision of the regulations be rescinded 
by requiring that the ordinary provisions of the civil service 
rules regarding certification should apply to the appointment 
of rural carriers, and that three eligibles should be certified 
by the Civil Service Commission. The order also enjoined 
upon the Postmaster General selection "with sole reference 
to merit and fitness and without regard to political considera- 
tions." ^ Commenting on this order in its annual report the 
Commission stated that 

* Ibid., p. 118. 

^ Twenty-ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1912), p. 137. 



438 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Under the former regulations the Department was not 
given a right of choice, but was required to appoint the eligible 
standing highest on the local register. It became evident 
that some latitude should be allowed in the selection of eligibles 
for appointment in this as in all other parts of the service. 
There are few branches of the public service the successful 
operation of which is so dependent on the personality of the 
employee. The greater part of the work of the rural carrier 
is done on his route away from the supervision of his superior 
officer and not in full view of the public as in the case of the 
city carrier. He is brought into direct contact with patrons 
and their families, and it is necessary not only that his behavior 
should make him worthy of their confidence but that his char- 
acter and disposition should be such as to inspire it. If the 
patrons lack confidence in the carrier, it will show itself in a 
diminution in the patronage of the route. 

In view of these reasons the President in an order of De- 
cember 30, 191 1, amended the rules to provide that three 
names should be certified for each vacancy. To guard against 
possible abuse of this right of choice, the order provides that 
all selections shall be made with sole reference to merit and 
fitness and without regard to political considerations, and that 
political recommendations shall not be considered but shall be 
returned to the writers.^ 

It is, perhaps, fruitless to discuss further the relative merits 
of the two positions thus taken at different times by the Com- 
mission. The fact that the method of certifying the highest 
eligible apparently gave satisfaction for nearly ten years (for 
there is no indication to the contrary in either the reports of 
the Commission or of the Post Office Department prior to 
1912, when the change was made) gives to the reasons for 
the change thus presented by the Commission in 1912 some- 
thing of the character of an original discovery. 

In connection with apportioned positions it should be noted 
that the rule permitting the appointing officer to select one of 
the three on the eligible register may work in precisely the 
opposite way to what has just been indicated; that is, it may 
enable the appointing officer to select a person actually higher 

^ Ibid., p. 15- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 439 

on the register in terms of the ratings received than if he 
were compelled to select the first name. The reason is that, 
owing to the apportionment, the first of the three names certi- 
fied may be that of a candidate receiving a lower rating than 
that of the candidate whose name appears third, but who comes 
from a state more in arrears in its quota of appointments. 
With respect to this class of positions, therefore, the one in 
three rule may be said to operate in the interests of sound per- 
sonnel administration. 

Similarly, as already pointed out, the one in three rule 
offers to the conscientious administrative officer an avenue of 
escape from the disastrous results of the military preference 
statutes. Despite the fact that these statutes call for preference 
in "appointment," it has been held consistently that all that 
is required is preference in certification to appointing officers, 
and that the appointing officer is free to pass over the name 
of the veteran if he so chooses. Although the mere inclusion 
of the veteran's name among the three certified, rather than the 
name of one higher qualified on the list, in itself tends to reduce 
the freedom of selection of the conscientious appointing officer, 
the situation is, of course, better than it would be if the rule 
required the appointment of the eligible first certified in every 
case. 

Another factor which must always be kept in mind in 
thinking of the relative advantages of the one in three rule 
as compared with the selection of the highest eligible, is that 
the former sometimes furnishes a welcome relief from the 
mistakes of the Civil Service Commission in rating. This is 
particularly likely to be true in cases where the ratings of the 
highest competitors are close. 

To sum up, the question of the degree of freedom which 
the appointing officer should have in selecting from among 
those declared eligible by the Civil Service Commission, does 
not admit of a categorical answer. It is one which can be 
answered only in the light of the political conditions in the 
service involved. The question arises, therefore, whether in 
formulating the practice in respect to selections from the elig- 



440 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ible list account might be taken of the variations in the moral 
or political atmosphere. In those branches of the service 
which are technical in character, and in which the head of 
the service has been appointed on a basis of merit and holds 
by tradition during good behavior and where the whole tradi- 
tion of the service is one of efficiency of a high technical stand- 
ard, it would doubtless be safe, even under present political 
conditions, to entrust a very wide margin of discretion to the 
appointing officer. On the other hand, in those services, 
particularly in local establishments, in which the head is a 
political appointee holding ofHce only during the life of the 
administration and actively engaged in the work of political 
organization even while holding office, little discretion can 
safely be permitted under the theory upon which the present 
practice is predicated; however, any recognition of variations 
in the degree of discretion permitted the appointing officer from 
one service to another would not be practicable. In general 
it may be said that, were the direct prohibition against political, 
and particularly Congressional, interference in personnel mat- 
ters made effective, and were the merit principle extended to 
embrace all the administrative posts in the service, the discre- 
tion now granted appointing officers in selection from among 
the eligibles would be much less open to question. 
Discretion in Fixing of Entrance Compensation Rates. — 
Under present practices in the federal service the appointing 
officer possesses a large discretion in fixing the entrance rate 
of compensation. With respect to a great number of posi- 
tions, particularly in the technical services, as stated in the 
chapter dealing with compensation, no entrance rates are pre- 
determined at which a new entrant is invariably appointed. 
Instead a range, sometimes very considerable, is provided, and 
a new entrant may be paid at any rate within the range at the 
discretion of the appointing department. In certain examina- 
tions the Civil Service Commission has announced that only 
those receiving the higher ratings will be certified for the 
higher rates, but ordinarily the practice is to inquire of each 
candidate the minimum salary which he will accept, and on 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 441 

receiving a request from a department or office for a certifica- 
tion to fill a vacancy at a specified salary to certify only those 
who have stated that they would accept a rate as low as that 
offered. This practice permits the appointing officer, desiring 
to secure a particular eligible not ordinarily within reach for 
certification, to specify an entrance salary so low that the 
higher eligibles will not be certified. He thereby secures the 
appointment of the eligible sought; and within a comparatively 
short time he may advance the salary of the new appointee 
to a rate considerably higher than the entrance rate. The 
new rate, if originally offered for entrance, would have at- 
tracted the persons higher on the register. To guard against 
this practice the civil service rules provide that a person can- 
not be promoted within the probationary period, which is 
ordinarily six months, without the consent of the Commis- 
sion, previously obtained. This practice may be guarded 
against in another way by fixing a prescribed rate for all en- 
trants, and establishing fairly rigid rules governing early pro- 
motion. This method is applicable to a great number of rou- 
tine positions, but is perhaps not sufficiently flexible to meet the 
requirements of the technical services. For those services 
perhaps the better method is to prohibit increasing the salary 
of an entrant within a reasonable period after appointment, 
unless the higher rate to which it is proposed to raise him 
was offered and declined by those who were ahead of the en- 
trant on the register. 

Publicity of Eligible Registers. — Under the practice of the 
Commission each person who takes an examination is notified 
of his rating in it, and those who passed are advised of their 
position on the register. The whole register, as it appears on 
the records of the Commission, is not made public, either 
through publication, as is the practice of some commissions, or 
through the maintenance of a copy of the register open to the 
public, a practice almost universal among civil service commis- 
sions. Where a civil service commission maintains a register 
accessible to the public, it is also usually the practice to enter 
upon this register a note of all certifications of any names 



442 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

upon the register and all appointments, rejections, declinations, 
and so forth, made on the basis of such certifications. 

In the absence of the use of any of these procedures by the 
Civil Service Commission it is impossible for any competitor 
to inform himself of what is going on in connection with 
the position for which he is eligible, except by making direct 
inquiry. He is not even advised, under the practice of the 
Commission, when his name is certified to an appointing officer, 
so that it is possible for him to be certified and passed over 
by an appointing officer without his being aware of the fact. 

This total absence of publicity in connection with the 
establishment of eligible registers and of certification and ap- 
pointment undoubtedly constitutes at the present time one of 
the weak points in the entire system of recruitment through 
competitive examination. It is not intended to imply that 
the system is ordinarily, or indeed aside from the most excep- 
tional cases, actually administered with other than scrupulous 
honesty, but the impossibility of making certain of this by 
examination of the Commission's records, leaves open the door 
for rumor and speculation of the worst sort. 

Whatever reasons of convenience may be advanced against 
publication of the eligible registers, or against permitting 
individual eligibles to have free access to the records of certifi- 
cations, appointments, etc., it is difficult to see why such records 
should not be opened to the representatives of recognized or- 
ganizations, who seek access to them for a public service. The 
Commission was thus, for many years, in the habit of open- 
ing such records to the representatives of the National Civil 
Service Reform League in recognition of the interest of that 
association, as representing the public, in the honest and im- 
partial execution of the competitive examination system. In 
1914, however, access to the records of the Commission was 
denied the League under such circumstances as to warrant the 
belief that the denial was made because of the fear that in- 
spection of the records would have disclosed irregularities in 
the enforcement of the law and rules, or at least would have 
reflected on the manner in which the administration was 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 443 

exercising its legal privilege of choice from among the names 
certified to it by the Commission. The purpose of the League, 
as stated in its formal request to the Commission, was to ob- 
tain specific information concerning fourth class postmasters 
under President Wilson's order of May 13, 1913, requiring 
competitive examinations to be held for all fourth class offices 
whose incumbents had not been appointed as a result of com- 
petitive examination. The League wished to ascertain the 
number of candidates who took part in the examinations, the 
names of the successful candidates with their ratings, the 
names of the candidates appointed from the list, and whether 
the previous incumbents of the offices entered the examinations. 
The reason given for the denial of the League's request was 
that it was necessary "in the interest of the public business, 
owing to the congestion of the work of the office." The action 
of the Commission was sustained by President Wilson, who 
made the bland suggestion that in its next annual report the 
Commission "disclose the method employed by them and by 
the Post Office Department in administering the Executive 
Order referred to, together with the results obtained thereby." ^ 
An eligible register having been established it comes into 
use as soon as a department head, or other appointing officer, 
makes request upon the Commission for the names of eligibles 
for the filling of a vacancy. On this point the rules provide : 

The nominating or appointing officer shall request the cer- 
tification of eligibles, and the commission shall certify, from 
the head of the register of eligibles appropriate for the group 
in which the position or positions to be filled are classified,^ a 
number of names sufficient to permit the nominating or ap- 
pointing officer to consider three names in connection with each 
vacancy. When so provided by regulation of the commission, 
selection shall be made from the register by the nominating 
or appointing officer without preliminary certification of the 
commission. 

The provision for selection by the appointing officer, di- 
rectly from the register, without calling for certification, is 

^ For details of the incident see Good Government, September, 1916, 
pp. 81-85. 



444 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

employed only in connection with trades positions in the larger 
field establishments — such as arsenals, navy yards, etc. 
Probationary Period. — The civil service act lays down as 
one of its fundamental provisions to be incorporated in the 
rules, "that there shall be a period of probation before any 
absolute appointment for employment." Pursuant to this 
injunction the rules provide : 

The person selected for appointment shall be duly notified 
by the appointing officer, and upon accepting and reporting for 
duty shall receive from such officer a certificate of appointment. 
The first six months under this appointment shall be a proba- 
tionary period; but the commission and the department con- 
cerned may, by regulations, fix the probationary period at one 
year for any specified positions. -'■ If and when, after full and 
fair trial, during this period, the conduct or capacity of the 
probationer be not satisfactory to the appointing officer, the 
probationer shall be so notified in writing, with a full state- 
ment of reasons, and this notice shall terminate his service. 
His retention in the service beyond the probationary period 
confirms his absolute appointment.^ 

The procedure required for removal during the proba- 
tionary period under this rule differs from that prescribed 
for removal after absolute appointment, in that in the latter 
case the employee must be given an opportunity to answer, 
and his answ^ers, together with the original charges, must be 
made of the record in the department and in the Civil Service 
Commission. 

The provision for probationary appointment previous to 
absolute appointment is a feature of virtually all public per- 
sonnel systems and one which, if properly administered, is of 
high value. If the work of probationers is carefully watched 
and if those found unsuitable are actually removed, the effect 

^ "The extension of the probationary period to one year has been 
authorized by the Commission in the following positions :" Mining engi- 
neers and miners, field duty, Bureau of Mines ; assistant forest rangers 
and forest assistants in the field Forest Service ; logging engineers, Agri- 
culture; all scientific positions in the Geological Survey; aid, Lighthouse 
Service; forest rangers and grazing assistants in the Forest Service. 

^ Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. 55. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 445 

is, of course, extremely beneficial. It is questionable, how- 
ever, whether in the federal service at present this institution 
is functioning to any marked degree. Appointing officers com- 
monly fail to exercise the power thus conferred upon them 
for the same reasons that they do not generally exercise their 
plenary power of removing permanent employees for in- 
capacity or misconduct. At this point it may be pointed out, 
however, that in addition to other general factors an additional 
difficulty arises in the service at Washington from the selec- 
tion of the subordinate personnel from the whole area of the 
country. An appointing officer is naturally reluctant to dis- 
miss during the probationary period an employee who has but 
recently, at great expense, come to Washington from a distant 
point to take service with the government. 

Making the probationary period effective as a means for 
weeding out of the service at the outset those who show no 
promise of usefulness is one of the most difficult problems en- 
countered in the whole field of public personnel administration, 
and it cannot be said that anything approaching a satisfactory 
solution has yet been developed anywhere. On this point the 
Reclassification Commission expressed itself as follows : 

The Commission believes that a more thorough and ef- 
fective use should be made of the probationary period, and that 
the law should be so changed that probationary appointments 
could become permanent only by a definite administrative de- 
cision. 

Recommendation 17 (&). — The Commission therefore 
recommends that administrative officials be required to 
submit to the Civil Service Commission such reports re- 
garding the efficiency of probationary appointees as the 
Commission may require, and that no permanent appoint- 
ment be made except on certificate by the Commission 
that the employee has satisfactorily passed his probation- 
ary period. 
Under this provision the Civil Service Commission might, 
for example, require that bi-monthly reports be submitted by 
the head of the department or other organization, during the 
probationary period, certifying as to the efficiency of the ap- 
pointee. In case of an adverse report, the Civil Service Com- 



446 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

mission would naturally withhold certification of permanent 
appointment. No probationary appointee would then be per- 
mitted to become a permanent appointee until after the re- 
quired number of reports had been made upon his efficiency 
and the Civil Service Commission had issued a certificate of 
permanent appointment. 

These precautions would force upon appointing officers' 
careful inspection of the work of probationary appointees, and 
would safeguard the government from placing upon its rolls 
permanently those who ha4 failed to show proper ability to do 
the work. By predicating permanent appointment on a de- 
cision instead of an omission, the probationary period would 
become a really effective part of the examination, as it is evi- 
dent the law intended it should be. It should not be over- 
looked that the merit system requires the exclusion of the 
unfit fully as much as the retention of the fit, and that the re- 
moval of the unfit during the probationary period works less 
hardship on them and is less costly to the government than 
demotion or dismissal after they have received permanent ap- 
pointment.^ 

Although in certain classes of positions, even six months 
seems to have been found too short a period for the proper 
appraisal of the capacity of the probationer, it is believed that 
for the ordinary run of clerical, sub-clerical, or even routine 
technical positions it is too long a period. The extension of 
the probationary period beyond what is necessary for ap- 
praisal of the capacity of the employee is undesirable, because 
it tends to encourage the appointing officer in delaying the tak- 
ing of positive action in the case of probationers actually 
meriting removal; and needless to say the longer action is 
delayed the harder it becomes. It would seem desirable, there- 
fore, to amend the rule on this head by specifying no par- 
ticular period of probation, but authorizing the Commission to 
fix such periods by separate action for each class of positions. 
Efficiency of the Competitive Examination System. — 
When the competitive examination system was established by 
Congress 35 years ago it was adopted not primarily, or perhaps 
even incidentally, with the thought of providing a system in- 

* Report, Part I, p. 115. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 447 

herently fitted for recruiting the personnel of the government 
effectively and economically, but rather as a means of com- 
batting the evils inherent in the spoils system. As the merit 
principle has become more and more firmly established, the 
value of the competitive examination system as a check against 
the reintroduction of the spoils method of selection has come 
to be accepted so much as a matter of course that interest 
has come to center rather upon the question of the actual effi- 
ciency of the competitive examination system as a method of, 
recruitment. 

The methods of examination have been developed to such 
an extent that it is believed that the competitive examination 
system now furnishes, on the whole, as effective and as 
economical a system of recruitment as can well be devised for 
the government, quite regardless of the necessity of excluding 
politics. More and more large industrial and commercial 
organizations, as is commonly known, are applying formalized 
tests in recruiting the run of minor employees, and as to 
the superior personnel the methods pursued by the Commis- 
sion are not inherently different from those used in private 
practice. 

A few illustrations of the efficiency of the Commission as 
a recruiting agency may be cited from the reports of the Com- 
mission. 

The facilities the Commission has at hand for securing 
promptly a large number of persons qualified along special 
lines have been well illustrated by the examination for in- 
spector of meat products held as a result of the act approved 
June 30, 1906. In the course of the debate on the measure 
some doubt was expressed by various Members of Congress 
as to whether the Commission would be able to secure quali- 
fied inspectors rapidly enough to meet the needs of the service. 
The act, however, as passed did not take the positions out of 
the competitive classified service, and results have demon- 
strated the wisdom of this course. On July 2 the Department 
of Agriculture asked the Commission to hold an examination 
to carry out the provisions of the law. Twenty- four hours 
thereafter an announcement giving the scope, times, and places 



448 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of the examination was sent to the press, to local boards of 
examiners, and to various institutions through whose agency- 
it was believed that competent inspectors could be secured. 
Applications came in from every section of the country, and 
the examination was held on July 21 at about 200 places, at 
which 2,496 persons appeared, 795 of whom attained eligible 
ratings. On July 28 the first certification of 51 names was 
sent to the Department, and within a few days of that time 
all the papers were rated. 

Owing to the heavy demands of the Department, the papers 
of persons receiving ratings of 65 per cent or over were made 
eligible and as a result of this action 82^5 selections in all have 
been made from the registers of the Commission. This of- 
fice has been informed by the Department of Agriculture that 
the results have been satisfactory. A considerable number 
of excellent employees has been secured, and an extremely 
small percentage of those certified has turned out to be un- 
satisfactory. The Commission has now established a second 
register and is prepared to meet the future needs of the serv- 
ice. It is not iDelieved to have been possible for the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, with the machinery at its disposal, to 
itself weed out of the large number of applicants those not 
having the necessary qualifications for the position in anything 
like the time actually occupied by the Commission in accom- 
plishing this task.^ 

Another illustration is furnished by the work of the Com- 
mission in recruiting the valuation force of the Interstate 
Commerce Commission : ^ 

An act of March i, 1913, provided for the physical valua- 
tion of railroads by the Interstate Commerce Commission. 
The Civil Service Commission examined competitively for this 
work 14,050 during the fiscal year 191 4 and 4,434 during 
191 5, a total of 18,484. About 6,500 eligibles were secured 
and somewhat more than 1,200 have been appointed. Forty- 
six distinct kinds of examination were held, most of them for 
technical positions of the highest order. Eighty-seven ap- 
pointments were made at $3,000 to $4,800 per annum. 

In commenting on the force thus assembled, officials of 

^ Twenty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1906), p. 3. 

^Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1915), p. 8. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 449 

the Interstate Commerce Commission have stated that through 
these examinations more satisfactory service has been obtained 
than could have been secured through any other agency; that 
the men appointed are of the highest order in training and 
abihty and are exceptionally efficient in the performance of 
their duties. The men engaged in the physical valuation of 
railroads constitute one of the most remarkable engineering 
forces ever assembled and their selection through competitive 
examination is a striking illustration of the efficiency of the 
merit system in meeting the demands of the public service. 

Indeed the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion has related that "an official of one of the large bureaus 
of the government which has necessarily close relationship 
with private business houses has expressed himself as being 
better satisfied with the employees secured by the commission's 
methods, for even the highest character of positions, than with 
those he secured personally when occupying an official posi- 
tion in private employment." ^ 

Whatever may be thought of this high praise, it is cer- 
tain that on occasion some of the appointing officers who have 
been authorized by law to make appointments without ref- 
erence to the civil service act, have called upon the Commis- 
sion to supply them with eligibles. Thus, when the Federal Re- 
serve Act was passed, giving the Federal Reserve Board author- 
ity to appoint all its employees without reference to the civil 
service act, with the proviso that the President might bring 
those employees under the act, the President, in response 
to representations, declined to do so, on the theory that the 
unrestricted selection by the Board would be productive of a 
better selection and that, owing to the high caliber of the 
membership of the Board, there was no danger of political 
selection such as would warrant the interposition of the Civil 
Service Commission. Upon the organization of the Board, 
however, it found itself besieged with so many applications 
for appointment that it called upon the Civil Service Commis- 
sion to conduct an examination for the purpose. 

^ Thirty-third Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1916), p. xxxiii. 



450 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Similarly the Department of Commerce and the Interstate 
Commerce Commission have called upon the Commission to 
recruit by examination men to fill the positions which, under 
the law, might have been filled solely by the discretion of the 
Department. It is also noteworthy that as far back as 1905, 
when, owing to the difficulty experienced by the Commission 
in securing sufficient eligibles for certain classes of positions 
on the Isthmus of Panama, it was at one time suggested that 
this entire branch of the service should be withdrawn from 
classification, "this plan was, however, opposed by the Isthmian 
Canal Commission which insisted that it would be impossible 
to carry on the work successfully without the assistance af- 
forded by the civil service law." ^ 

Praise of the efficiency of the Commission's administra- 
tion of the competitive examination system as a whole, how- 
ever, does not exclude criticism of the results produced at 
specific points. In the great number and variety of examina- 
tions conducted by the Commission, it is inevitable that the 
eligible registers provided for a proportion of positions should 
be less satisfactory than would be the selections made by the 
honest administrative officer in the exercise of his unregulated 
discretion. Particularly is this likely to be the case in the 
technical and administrative positions. 

The provision of an adequate staff, properly compensated, 
would make it possible for the Commission to produce better 
results, in all but a negligible proportion of cases, than the 
departments themselves possibly could, and at less cost. 

In appraising the efficiency of the competitive system as 
administered by the Commission, the influence of the mili- 
tary preference and apportionment rules must ever be kept in 
mind. These rules are not part of the system ; on the contrary, 
to the extent that they operate, they set the whole system at 
naught. 

The Commission as a recruiting agency was subjected to a 
severe test by the war emergency. The efficiency with which it 

* Twenty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Com- 
mission (1905), p. 19. 



RECRUITMENT METHODS: CLASSIFIED SERVICE 451 

met the test has been a subject of some discussion, and, in any 
case, must be a matter of opinion. It would seem, however, 
that the work of the Commission, despite exceptions at specific 
points, was, especially in view of the moderate cost involved, 
excellently administered, and, within the limitations imposed 
by the nature of the task, constituted a contribution of the high- 
est value to the war program. The Commission's contribution 
would have been far greater, it is believed, had the President, 
at the outset of the war, adopted the policy of centralizing 
all recruitment in the Commission. Some of the most im- 
portant war agencies, as the Food Administration, the Fuel 
Administration, the Shipping Board, the Council of National 
Defense, the Aircraft Production Board, were excepted by 
the President from the jurisdiction of the Commission, with 
resulting duplication of labor and improper placement of per- 
sonnel. 

In this connection the following from the report for 191 8 
of the Chief Examiner of the Commission is of interest : ^ 

In spite of the magnitude of the work under its direction, 
there is no criticism heard of the inspectors employed by the 
Ordnance Bureau throughout the country. That bureau had 
made definite specifications (amended from time to time as 
experience justified) covering all the different classes of in- 
spectors required; and these specifications have been pub- 
lished by the commission in announcements of examinations, 
which have been pending since practically the beginning of the 
war. Another bureau has been severely criticized by a com- 
mittee of Congress for the incompetence of its inspectors, and 
for its wasteful extravagance in the employment of civilians; 
and it is interesting to note that such bureau had not cooper- 
ated with the Commission, had fixed no standard of qualifica- 
tions, and had made employments of all kinds indiscriminately 
without reference to any existing civil service registers. 

It need hardly be added that what has been here said 
regarding the efficiency of the competitive examination sys- 
tem operated by the Commission as a recruiting mechanism 

^ Thirty-fifth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1918), p. xxxi. 



452 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

has reference solely to that mechanism and does not relate to 
the caliber of the personnel actually recruited through it. No 
system of recruiting can rise above its source; that is to say, 
it cannot select for the service any higher class of personnel 
than is attracted to the service by the conditions there obtain- 
ing. These conditions, whether of compensation, security, 
opportunity for advancement, or the like, lie, for the most 
part, wholly outside the sphere of the Commission's influ- 
ence ; yet it is within the limitations set by them that the Com- 
mission's recruiting system must work. 

Reemployment of Employees Laid Off. — An obvious re- 
quirement of a proper personnel system is that the management 
should do its utmost to find employment elsewhere in the 
service whenever, due to lack of work or other causes, it is 
necessary to reduce the force. Despite the obvious character 
of this requirement, its recognition in the federal system is a 
recent innovation adopted only under the pressure of the de- 
mobilization of the civilian employees of the government upon 
the close of the war. Prior to that time a person laid ofif for 
lack of work was no longer the subject of any interest on 
the part of the Civil Service Commission or any other central 
agency of the government. Should a vacancy occur within 
the same department within a year after such layoff and the 
person laid off should be fortunate enough to hear of such 
vacancy and obtain the consent of the appointing officer he 
might be reinstated under the general rule governing reinstate- 
ment; but his privileges in this respect are no greater than 
those enjoyed by persons who left the service voluntarily. 

The Executive Order of November 29, 1918 (as amended 
April 30, 1919), by which the obligation of the government 
towards those laid off for lack of work was for the first time 
recognized, is as follows : 

The names of persons in the competitive classified service 
with unrestricted status who were appointed, either perma- 
nently or probationally, and who have served less than three 
years, and who are separated from the service because of a 
reduction of force, and who are recommended for further em- 



RECRUITMENT METHODS : CLASSIFIED SERVICE 453 

ployment by the government because of demonstrated effi- 
ciency in the office from which they are separated, will, upon 
request, be entered by the Civil Service Commission upon ap- 
propriate eligible registers for reappointment, eligibility 
thereon to continue from one year from date of separation. 

Such reemployment registers will be separate and apart 
from the registers of the Commission resulting from current 
examinations, and eligibility thereon, and certifications and 
appointments therefrom, shall in all respects conform to the 
usual practice and procedure, except that certifications of per- 
sons formerly in the apportioned service shall be made without 
regard to the apportionment. 

The Departments in making requisition on the Commission 
for certification of eligibles shall state whether they prefer 
certification to be made from a reemployment register or from 
a regular register of the Commission. 

It is desirable that the Departments, in making requisitions, 
request certification from the reemployment registers so far 
as practicable, having in view the efficient performance of 
government work. 

It will be noted that the order allows the departments, if 
they so desire, to appoint from the regular competitive register 
instead of from the reemployment register. The Reclassifica- 
tion Commission has urged, however, that those on the re- 
employment register should have precedence over those on the 
regular register, and even over those in the service who might 
be promoted to the vacancies "except upon showing of cause 
satisfactory to the Civil Service Commission." ^ In principle 
this recommendation is doubtless correct, but if put into effect 
it would be desirable that the Civil Service Commission adopt 
a very liberal policy toward the administrative officer who may 
seek to avoid the reemployment register in a given case. The 
danger in giving too mandatory a preference to those on re- 
employment registers is that the provision of such registers is 
not infrequently taken advantage of by administrative officers 
to rid themselves of an inefficient employee whom they lack 
the courage to dismiss out of hand. 

^Jteport of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 128. 



CHAPTER XII 

RECRUITMENT METHODS: THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 

Of the five formal systems of recruitment applied outside 
the regular competitive classified service, three, those applied to 
commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, presi- 
dential postmasters and laborers, are competitive; and two, 
those applied to the foreign service and the commissioned 
officers of the Public Health Service, are non-competitive. 
Presidential Postmasters^ — The system of recruitment of 
presidential postmasters, as already stated, rests w^holly on 
executive order. This order, which was issued by Presi- 
dent Wilson on March 31, 191 7, reads as follows : ^ 

Hereafter, when a vacancy occurs in the position of post- 
master of any office of the first, second, or third class as the 
result of death, resignation, removal, or, on the recommenda- 
tion of the First Assistant Postmaster General, approved by 
the Postmaster General, to the effect that the efficiency or 
needs of the service requires that a change shall be made, the 
Postmaster General shall certify the fact to the Civil Service 
Commission, which shall forthwith hold an open competitive 
examination to test the fitness of applicants to fill such va- 
cancy; and, when such examination has been held and the 
papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said com- 
mission shall certify the result thereof to the Postmaster Gen- 
eral, who shall submit to the President the name of the highest 
qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy unless 
it is established that the character of residence of such appli- 
cant disqualifies him for appointment. No person who has 

^ While this book was in press President Harding issued a new Execu- 
tive Order regarding the appointment of first, second, and third class 
postmasters, and the Civil Service Commission revised somewhat its 
scheme of examinations. For the text of the new order and for a brief 
discussion of it and the revised procedure under it, see footnote begin- 
ning on page 399. 

^Thirty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1917), P- iiP- 

454 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 



455 



passed his sixty-fifth birthday shall be given the examination 
herein provided for.^ 

The precise character of this action should be clearly under- 
stood. It does not apply to vacancies created by the expira- 
tion of the four-year statutory term. The successful candi- 
date in the open competitive examination thus has before him 
the assurance only of a four-year term ; and, during those four 
years, he does not enjoy the statutory protection against re- 
moval accorded those in the classified service.- 

At the time of the promulgation of the order the number 
of presidential post offices was as follows : 



Class 


Compensation 


Number 


First 


$3,ooo-$8,ooo 

$2,000-$2,90O 

$i,ooo-$i,900 


568 
2,207 
7,564 


Second 


Third 






10,339 



The average salary was approximately $1,612. 

The President's order fixes no requirement respecting resi- 
dence for these examinations, but merely provides by implica- 
tion that an eligible may be disqualified because of residence. 
By regulations, however, the Commission requires that the 
applicant "must actually reside within the delivery of the 
office for which the application is made." ^ It thus perpetuated 

* On October 8, 1920, after this manuscript was prepared, President 
Wilson amended the Executive Order of March 31, 1921, by providing 
for an examination, "if such vacancy is not filled by nomination of some 
person within the competitive classified civil service who has the required 
qualifications," thereby permitting the promotion of a classified employee 
to a postmastership without further examination. The amended Order 
also prohibited the examination of a person "who has not actually resided 
within the delivery of such office for two years next preceding such 
vacancy." Thirty-seventh Report of the United States Civil Service Com- 
mission (1920), p. 97. 

^ Comprising a prohibition against removal "except for such cause 
as will promote the efficiency of said service." and the requirement of 
charges in writing, opportunity for answer, and the like. 

' It is also provided that he "must have so resided at the time the 
vacancy occurred," this restriction being manifestly designed to prevent 
the evasion of the residence requirement by a removal into the delivery 
area after the vacancy occurs. After this discussion was written Presi- 
dent Wilson amended the Order of March 31, 1917, as indicated in a 
preceding footnote, and wrote the residence requirement into the Order. 



456 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the old tradition that, without any legal requirement, had 
always governed. This tradition, it will be recalled, was also 
observed when the system of competitive examination was ex- 
tended to the fourth class postmasterships, but in that case 
opening the competition to persons not resident in the dis- 
trict would have been of little avail in getting better candidates 
because the duties of the fourth class postmasters must almost 
invariably be performed in conjunction with some local busi- 
ness. 

To estimate the effect of this residence requirement upon 
the quality of the competitors is difficult. In the less important 
offices, it is probably not serious. In the larger offices it bars 
from the competition postal employees who hold positions of 
advanced responsibility in other post offices, which may be 
larger perhaps than the office in which the vacancy in the post- 
mastership occurs. Free movement of experienced adminis- 
trative employees from one post office to another is, as already 
pointed out, in the highest degree desirable, and it is believed 
that the time has come to abandon or materially liberalize the 
residence requirement for postmasterships, with respect to em- 
ployees already in the postal service. 

The examination system devised by the Civil Service Com- 
mission to carry out the order establishes two distinct types 
of examination : ( i ) for offices having an annual compensa- 
tion from $i,ooo to $2,400, a combination of an assembled 
written test and a non-assembled experience test; and (2) for 
offices having an annual compensation above $2,400, a non- 
assembled education and experience test. 

For the offices having annual compensation of from $1,000 
to $2,400, applicants are examined on arithmetic, penmanship, 
and letterwriting, which are given a weight of 65, and the re- 
maining 35 weights out of the total of 100 are given to ex- 
perience and business training. In the examination for offices 
having an annual compensation above $2,400 education has a 
weight of 20, and business training and experience a weight of 
80 per cent. 

No indication is given by the Commission of the basis upon 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 457 

which the rating on experience is determined in the examina- 
tions for offices having a compensation of $2,400 or less ; but, 
if the statements made by it with respect to the rating of ex- 
perience for examinations for offices having compensation 
above $2,400 may be accepted as a guide, the experience con- 
sidered desirable is that gained in executive positions in busi- 
ness, and no special weight is attached to experience in the 
postal business. In establishing standards of experience for 
offices paying more than $2,400, the Commission differentiates 
between different sizes of offices according as their pay is (i) 
from $2,400 to $4,000; (2) from $4,000 to $6,000; and.(3) 
over $6,000. For the lowest class "applicants must show 
that for at least three years they have held responsible posi- 
tions in which their principal duties involved the management 
of business affairs and the direction and supervision of em- 
ployees, including such positions in the different branches of 
the postal service." For offices paying from $4,000 to $6,000 
the requirement is for at least five years' experience as "presi- 
dent, general manager, general superintendent, or assistant 
general superintendent requiring the active charge of firms, 
corporations, or offices," and for offices paying more than 
$6,000 a year, seven years of such experience.^ 

In none of these statements of requirements is any special 
importance or value attached to experience in the postal serv- 
ice as opposed to experience in private business. If anything, 
greater value is apparently attached to business than to postal 
experience. This is, of course, in harmony with the whole 
tenor of the order establishing a system of open competition 
rather than one of promotion, and the Commission is, there- 
fore, perhaps not to be criticized for carrying out the intent 
of the order. Nevertheless, it would seem that, even within 
those limitations, the Commission might well, in its published 
announcements, encourage the competition of members of the 

^ There are also age requirements graded according to the class of 
the post office. For offices of the first class the minimum age is 30 and 
for those of the second class the minimum age is 25 years. (Third 
class offices fall wholly in the class of those having annual compensation 
of from $1,000 to $2,400.) The maximum age is 65 years for both 
classes. 



458 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

postal service by placing much more emphasis than it now 
does upon the desirability of postal experience. In connection 
with the smaller offices this could hardly be done, of course, 
without changing the requirements of the regulations to the 
effect that the applicant "must actu'klly reside within the de- 
livery of the office for which the application is made," since 
the only postal employees so resident might have had alto- 
gether too little experience to warrant their serious considera- 
tion for the postmastership. It is impossible to state to what 
extent the Commission, in its rating, is actually giving credit 
for postal experience. It is believed, however, that the actual 
rating substantially accords with the policy thus apparently im- 
plied in the statement of requirements, and that a postal em- 
ployee who makes application for a presidential postmastership 
finds his postal experience receives little, if any more, con- 
sideration, and perhaps, in some cases, not as much as the 
experience gained in wholly remote lines of business. 

With respect to the evidence used in rating, the Civil 
Service Commission states that in the examination for offices 
having an annual compensation of $2,400 or less "the sub- 
ject of business training and experience is rated on the appli- 
cants' statements in their applications and corroborative evi- 
dence" and it makes the same announcement with respect to 
the rating on "education" in the examination for offices hav- 
ing compensation above $2,400. In the latter examination, 
however, the rating on "business training and experience" 
is based, not only upon the statements of the candidate, but 
upon "a careful personal investigation of each applicant by 
representatives of the Civil Service Commission, one of whom 
is to be selected by the Commission from the Post Office De- 
partment, such representatives to make report of their inves- 
tigation direct to the Commission," The investigation on 
this head is to consist of a "careful personal inquiry from per- 
sons best qualified to know of the business qualifications, abil- 
ity, and experience of each candidate, the report of such in- 
quiry to be confined to the findings of facts and to be made 
part of the evidence and report upon which the Commission 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 459 

rates the candidate." At the same time, the representatives 
are to make inquiry "as to each candidate's suitability for the 
office by reason of his character and personal characteristics, 
this part of the inquiry to be non-competitive and not to be 
considered in the rating of the candidate, but if he is found 
unsuitable by the Commission, as a result of such inquiry, he, 
of course, will not be declared eligible." 

The President's order governing the appointment of presi- 
dential postmasters goes further than do the civil service rules 
in the influence allotted to the examination in determining se- 
lection. Under the rules of the regular competitive system, 
three names are certified to the appointing officer for each 
vacancy and his selection from among those names is in no 
way controlled. The President's order, on the other hand, 
requires that when the "examination has been held and the 
papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said Com- 
mission shall certify the result thereof to the Postmaster Gen- 
eral, who shall submit to the President the name of the high- 
est qualified eligible for appointment to fill such vacancy, un- 
less it is established that the character or residence of such 
applicant disqualifies him for appointment." 

Rumors have been current in recent months that the Post 
Office Department was urging the President to amend the rule 
so as to permit the department to send him the name of any 
one of the highest three as in the classified competitive serv- 
ice. What has been said regarding the merits of that prac- 
tice in connection with the regular competitive system applies 
here and need not be repeated. The officers of the National 
Civil Service Reform League, although they had never taken 
any strong ground in opposition to the practice of certifying 
three names for each vacancy in the regular competitive sys- 
tem, wrote to the President opposing the introduction of the 
one in three rule in the case of presidential postmasters. They 
said : ^ 

In the promulgation of the order, the President stood on 
high ground which will not, we venture to suggest, be under- 

^ Good Government, vol. z^, p. 157. 



46o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

rnined by those members of Congress who seek a partial re- 
turn to the patronage system. In providing as you did, for 
the appointment of the first person unless it is established that 
the character or residence disqualifies him from appointment, 
you reduced substantially the pressure exerted by office seek- 
ers upon the executive branch of the government. A return 
to the rule of three would be interpreted as an invitation to 
friends of eligibles to attempt to influence the appointment. 

The suggestion that some latitude might properly be al- 
lowed the department when the differences in the ratings are 
very slight would seem to have special application to the ex- 
amination provided for postmasterships paying under $2,400. 
Here the rating on experience has a weight of 35 out of 100 
in a final average in which, by a mathematical computation, 
the rating on experience is combined with the ratings in the 
written tests. Relative ratings produced by such a mathe- 
matical combination are notoriously unreliable as means of 
determining the relative merits of candidates whose final aver- 
ages differ but little. 

The President's order does not state who shall determine 
whether the character or residence of the applicant disquali- 
fies him for appointment. It appears ^ that, in practice, when 
the department, on making investigation,^ has taken exception 
to the character or residence of the highest eligible, it has 
called the matter to the attention of the Civil Service Commis- 
sion and requested it to re-rate the examination. In some 
cases the Commission has complied but in others it has de- 

* Hearing before the subcommittee of the Committee on Post Offices 
and Post Roads, United States Senate, Sixty-sixth Congress, First Ses- 
sion, on the nomination of Robert T. Wade for postmaster at Morehead 
City, N. C, p. 90. 

' The department, however, has not relied solely on its own inves- 
tigation but has permitted any member of Congress to examine, for his 
"confidential" information, the eligible register transmitted to it by the 
Civil Service Commission. (Hearings, p. 81.) This would seem a wholly 
unnecessary, if not improper, procedure, particularly as the eligible him- 
self is not even advised of his relative standing on the list. The re- 
sponsibility of the department under the order would be discharged, and 
all proper interest of the Congressman met, by advising the Congress- 
man of the name of the highest eligible and requesting advice of any 
facts regarding the "character or residence" of that eligible which might 
tend to disqualify him for appointment. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 461 

clined. In the latter cases the department has generally ac- 
quiesced, but in a few instances it has certified to the Presi- 
dent the name of the next highest eligible, taking the position 
that the power of "establishing" that the character or resi- 
dence of the eligible disqualifies him for appointment rests with 
the department; and in this the Commission has acquiesced. 

Examination of the records of the department made in 
September, 1919, showed that, out of a total of 1,267 appoint- 
ments made under the order, the first eligible has been nomi- 
nated in 1,188 cases, or 93.7 per cent of the total; or, if the 
cases in which the death or declination of the first eligible 
necessitated the selection of the next available eligible be 
added, in 1,214 cases, or 95.7 per cent of the total. In the 
remaining 53 cases the first eligible was rejected, in 35 cases 
because of character or residence, and in 18 cases because of 
ill health. 

An executive order issued April 13, 1920, extends to presi- 
dential postmasterships the principle of military preference en- 
acted by Congress for all non-presidential positions, but in a 
much more limited form. The order provides: 

The Veteran Preference Statutes shall apply in the selec- 
tion of persons for appointment as postmaster at offices of the 
first, second, and third class. When the highest eligible cer- 
tified to the Postmaster General by the Civil Service Commis- 
sion is not a veteran but a veteran is among those certified as 
eligible, the Postmaster General may submit to the President 
for nomination the name of either the highest eligible or the 
veteran obtaining the highest eligible rating as the best inter- 
ests of the service may require. 

Although the order thus provides that the "veteran prefer- 
ence statutes" shall apply, the context makes clear that the 
preference is to be extended only to the veteran himself, and 
not to his wife or widow, as provided by the Statutes. 

When the department has certified a name to the Presi- 
dent, that name has invariably been sent to the Senate; at 
least, no instance has come to light in which the friends of 
any candidate have attempted to intervene at this stage of the 



462 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

procedure. In the Senate the nomination is considered by 
the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and only in 
one or two cases in which some special question has been raised 
as to the propriety of the examining procedure has that com- 
mittee failed to confirm the nomination, virtually without in- 
vestigation. Up to the present time the requirement of con- 
firmation by the Senate cannot be said, therefore, to have 
been in any degree inimical to the competitive or merit prin- 
ciple in the selection of presidential postmasters. 

The proved efficiency of the methods employed by the 
Commission in recruitment for the ordinary grades in the com- 
petitive classified service makes it reasonable to assume, almost 
without investigation, that those methods have produced simi- 
larly satisfactory results here, and there is no reason to ques- 
tion this assumption.^ With respect to the more important 
postmasterships, however, the application of competitive ex- 
amination methods by the Commission |)resents almost a dis- 
tinct novelty. The position of postmaster at Boston, for ex- 
ample, for which the Commission recently held examination, 
carries a salary of $8,000, a salary double the highest salaries 
for any positions in the classified competitive service to which 
the Commission had previously applied the method of com- 
petitive examination (except in a few special instances). From 
the evidence thus far available, however, there is no reason 
to believe that the results of the examinations as applied to 
these higher offices has been other than satisfactory. This 
is not to say that in all cases opinion has been unanimous in 
the city concerned that the best candidate has been selected; 
but no instance has come to attention in which public dissat- 

* The only case in which there has been any airihg on the qualifica- 
tions of the candidates was that of the postmastership at Morehead, N. C, 
which was the subject of investigation by the Senate Committee on Post 
Office and Post Roads in 1919. In this case it was admitted by the wit- 
nesses that both candidates on the eligible register were well qualified 
for the position, the question at issue being merely whether the Civil 
Service Commission had acted properly in revising the ratings at the 
instance of the Post Office Department so as to reverse the position of 
the two candidates on the eligible register (see Hearings Before the Sub- 
committee of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, United 
States Senate, Sixty-sixth Congress, first session, on the nomination of 
Robert T. Wade as postmaster at Morehead, N. C). 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 463 

is faction has been expressed with the selection or the opinion 
voiced that the appointee was not quahfied for the post.^ 

^ It has been stated that the results of the examination for the post- 
mastership at Worcester, Massachusetts, a $6,000 position, perhaps the 
first important postmastership to be filled under the order, was emi- 
nently satisfactory. (See Good Government, January, 1918, vol. 35, page 

On May 10, 1921, President Harding issued a new Executive Order 
governing the appointment of first, second, and third class postmasters, 
which was subsequently slightly modified to make the two years' residence 
requirement relate to the date of the examination instead of to the date 
of the vacancy for which the examination is held. The Order as revised 
reads as follows : 

"When a vacancy exists or hereafter occurs in the position of post- 
master at an office of the first, second, or third class, if such vacancy is 
not filled by nomination of some person within the competitive classified 
civil service who has the required qualifications, then the Postmaster 
General shall certify the fact to the Civil Service Commission, which shall 
forthwith hold an open competitive examination to test the fitness of 
applicants to fill such vacancy, and when such examination has been held 
and the papers in connection therewith have been rated, the said commis- 
sion shall certify the results thereof to the Postmaster General, who shall 
submit to the President the name of one of the highest three qualified 
eligibles for appointment to fill such vacancy unless it is established that 
the character of residence of any such applicant disqualifies him for 
appointment : Provided, That at the expiration of the term of any person 
appointed to such position through examination before the Civil Service 
Commission, the Postmaster General may, in his discretion, submit the 
name of such person to the President for renomination without further 
examination. 

"No person who has passed his sixty-fifth birthday, or who has not 
actually resided within the delivery of such office for two years next pre- 
ceding the date of examination, shall be given the examination herein 
provided for. 

"If, under this order, it is desired to make nomination for any office 
of a person in the competitive classified service, such person must first be 
found by the Civil Service Commission to meet the minimum requirements 
for the office." 

This Order, it will be noted, applies to vacancies created by the ex- 
piration of the four-year statutory term, but it gives the successful candi- 
date in the open competitive examination the assurance only of a four-year 
term. Although it permits the Postmaster General, in his discretion to 
submit for renomination without further examination the name of the 
postmaster originally appointed by examination, it does not require him 
to do so if the services of the postmaster have been satisfactory. A 
successful postmaster of the opposite political faith from the administra- 
tion might find himself required to take a new competitive examination. 

Under the new Order, moreover, he might fail of reappointment even 
should he stand head and shoulders above his two nearest competitors in 
the new examination, because the new rule gives to the Postmaster General 
the right to select from among the three highest eligibles. 

The new Order preserves the residence requirement which by amend- 
ment was written into President Wilson's Order of March 31, 1917. All 
that was said in the original text against this requirement applies with 
equal force against the new Order. 

Under the new Order assembled written examinations are held for 
third-class postmasterships, which pay from $1,000 to $2,200. The sub- 



464 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Coast and Geodetic Survey. — The law governing the 
appointment of commissioned officers in the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, who comprise the unclassified personnel, does not 
provide for a competitive examination when entering the ser- 
vice, merely stipulating that no person shall be appointed aid, 
the lowest rank, or promoted "until after passing a satisfactory 
mental and physical examination conducted in accordance with 
regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Commerce." ^ The 

jects and weights in this examination are as follows, according to the 
circular (Form 2223) issued by the Civil Service Commission in July, 
1921: 

Subjects _ Weights 

1. Business training, experience and fitness (under this subject, 

full and careful consideration is given to the candidate's 
business training and experfence. The rating is based 
upon the candidate's sworn statements of his personal his- 
tory, as verified after inquiry by the Commission. It must 
be clearly shown that the candidate has demonstrated 
ability in meeting and dealing satisfactorily with the 
public) SO 

2. Accounts and arithmetic (this test includes a simple statement 

of a postmaster's monthly money-order account in a pre- 
pared form, furnished the candidate in the examination, 
and a few problems comprising addition, subtraction, 
multiplication, division, percentage, and their business 
applications) 30 

3. Penmanship (a test of ability to write legibly, rated on the 

specimen shown in the subject of letter writing) 10 

4. Letter writing (this subject is intended to test the candidate's 

ability to express himself intelligently in a business letter 

on a practical subj ect) 10 

Total 100 

Candidates for this examination must have reached their twenty-first 
birthday and must not have passed their sixty-fifth. 

For first and second class postmasterships the examinations are non- 
assembled, and are not radically different from those under the earlier 
Order as described in the original text. 

The requirements under the current circular (July, 1921) are as 
follows : 

Prerequisites. — Offices over $6,000. — For offices paying more than 
$6,000 a year the candidates must show that for at least seven years 
they have successfully filled responsible positions which required ability 
to organize, to direct, or to manage business affairs, including such posi- 
tions in different branches of the Postal Service ; candidates must also 
show that they have demonstrated their ability to meet and deal with the 
public satisfactorily. (Explanatory. — The nature of the business, the 
amount of clerical or office help supervised, the responsibility of the 
position filled, the extent of executive ability and initiative demonstrated, 
and the degree to which analysis of administrative and organization prob- 
lems was involved will be given consideration in rating this subject.) 

' 40 Stat. 88. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 465 

regulations, however, provide that all aids "shall be appointed 
by promotion from the position of junior engineer, deck 
officer, or extra observer, and in no case shall a person be 
appointed to the'' position of aid unless he has served at least 
six months as junior engineer, deck officer, or extra observer, 
and has performed satisfactory services and shown the proper 
qualifications for a commissioned officer in the Survey." 

Junior engineers, deck officers, and extra observers are 
appointed '"from a list of eligibles established by competitive 
examinations conducted in accordance with the rules of the 
United States Civil Service Commission." 

In this service, therefore, the examination for initial ap- 
pointment is made by the Civil Service Commission, but all 
examinations for commissions or for promotion are conducted 
by the service itself. 

Laborers. — In a governmental personnel system the re- 
cruitment of laborers requires and justifies a greater degree of 
attention than would seem warranted by the importance of 
the positions involved. The economic class, from which la- 
borers are recruited is, in the cities, the most numerous class, 
and the one in which employment is most irregular. Hence 
a local politician who can distribute government places carry- 
ing regular employment, however poorly paid, has a large and 
fruitful field of activity. Moreover, owing to the difficulty 
of applying any severely competitive methods to the selection 
of laborers, the system of recruitment tends to be less strictly 
safeguarded than in the case of positions involving more spe- 
cialized qualifications. The result is that the spoils system 
clings to labor positions with a tenacity almost equal to its 
hold on the higher executive positions. 

An additional reason for watching the entrance to labor 
positions with especial vigilance is that It may furnish a "back 
door" to the clerical service. The duties of a "laborer" In 
many cases shade ofif into those of a "clerk" — as where labor- 
ers are employed in stockrooms. In a well ordered personnel 
system properly qualified laborers may advance to certain cler- 
ical positions. Thus those unable to secure clerical positions 



466 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

through the regular channels may try to secure them by en- 
tering the service as laborers and subsequently securing a de- 
tail or a promotion to a clerical position. 

The regulations by which the principle of competitive ex- 
aminations was extended to labor positions (under the author- 
ity conferred on the President by the act of 1871) are made 
up, as already indicated, of two sets of regulations, one ap- 
plying to labor positions in Washington, the other to the field 
services.^ 

The regulations differ considerably in matters of detail. 
A substantive difference which is difficult of explanation is 
that, while in the case of the field services, the age limits are 
fixed (II, Section i) at from 20 to 50 years, which amounts 
to almost no restriction at all, for the positions at Washington 
(Regulation II) the age limits "may be prescribed by the 
Commission with the approval of appointing officers." Most 
important, however, is the difference in the composition of the 
"labor boards" which are set up to administer the regulations 
and to conduct the examinations. In Washington (Regula- 
tion I) a "board of labor employment" is set up for "each de- 
partment and independent executive office," the head of which 
"may designate one of its employees to serve as a member" 
of the board; and it is provided that "the Civil Service Com- 
mission shall supervise and direct the work of the board, and 
its representative on the board, in the absence of other mem- 
bers, shall perform the duties of the Board." What is thus 
provided is examination under the supervision of a joint de- 
partmental and Civil Service Commission Board. 

In the field service, a board of labor employment has been 
organized for each of the twelve districts into which the coun- 
try is divided for the administration of the regular competi- 
tive system. Such a district board consists of three members 
of the force of the Civil Service Commission in that district, 

^ The regulations governing Washington were promulgated Novem- 
ber 15, 1904 and amended July 12, 1905, and October 21, 1908. The pres- 
ent regulations governing the field services (superseding those originally 
promulgated December 12, 1904) were promulgated July 3, 1909, and 
amended June 15, 1915. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 467 

the district secretary acting as chairman, with the proviso that 
"in the event that in any civil service district there is not a 
sufficient number of the commission's employees available, 
detail may be made to the commission's force for the filling 
of vacancies in the labor employment board, until the com- 
mission shall have men of its own to relieve such detail." In 
addition to the three members of the board for the entire dis- 
trict, the Commission appoints in each city outside of the dis- 
trict headquarters where these regulations are in force a per- 
son in the federal service in that city as an auxiliary member 
of the board which serves in connection with the appointment 
of unskilled laborers in the service in such city. 

Rating is made solely on the basis of ability to perform 
manual labor, as shown by ability to lift a weight, or to meet 
some other test of strength, and by physical examination. 
Such examination is conducted at Washington, and at other 
cities where available, by physicians in the federal service de- 
tailed therefor. Where such physicians are not available the 
Commission designates physicians in private practice for the 
purpose. The ratings are relative and competitive, with pref- 
erence to qualified disabled veterans and Civil War veterans, 
as in the case of eligible lists for regular classified positions. 

The regulations covering the field service provide (III, 
Sec. 4) that "a copy of the register shall be kept in a place 
accessible to the public in the office of the secretary of the dis- 
trict in which the applicants are eligible and elsewhere as the 
commission may direct." No such provision is made with 
respect to the Washington labor lists. 

The method of certification is substantially the same 
as for classified positions, separate eligible registers being 
maintained for each city. The Commission is authorized, 
however, in the regulations governing the field service to cer- 
tify from its register in any civil service district "the three 
standing highest thereon shown by said register to possess the 
requisite qualifications for the position to be filled." ^ The 

* In a note to this regulation, the Commission cites its Circular No. 
1725, of June, 1910, as follows : "Under the provisions of this section 



468 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

method of rating purely in accordance with physical capacity 
is thus qualified, in the case of the field service, by permitting 
the general lists to be subdivided, after examination, into 
special lists on the basis of special qualifications, but without 
such special qualifications having been made the basis of com- 
petitive rating. While this method may seem to run counter 
to the strict competitive principle, it is doubtless justified in 
view of the rarity with which special qualifications are called 
for in this class of positions.^ 

Before passing to a consideration of the two important 
systems of non-competitive examination now in force — the 
systems applied to the consular and diplomatic services and 
to the medical officers of the Public Health Service — it may be 
well to comment on this type of examination in general. 

Attention has been called already to the law of 1853 under 
which clerical positions in the departments at Washington were 
filled upon non-competitive or pass examinations, and to the 
way in which that system broke down. In 1902 the Commis- 
sion made the following comment in reference to pass exami- 
nations : "The tendency of mere pass examinations is to be- 
come more and more a matter of form, and there is no security 
that such examinations will long be effective where there is 
strong political or personal pressure behind the candidates." 

In 1908, in connection with a provision of a pending bill, 
which called for the appointment of a large force required for 
the taking of the Thirteenth Decennial Census upon a non- 
competitive examination, the Commission presented at some 
length a discussion of the evils of the non-competitive as op- 
posed to the competitive system. 

certifying, nominating, or appointing officers may call for such vouchers 
or make such inquiries as they may deem advisable to satisfy themselves 
as to the possession of qualifications claimed by eligibles. The difficulty 
encountered in securing satisfactory eligibles for four-line teamsters and 
deckhands in the Quartermaster Corps at San Francisco, California, has 
been met by authorizing investigations along the lines set forth above." 
^ It would seem, however, that certain of the duties classed by the 
Commission as unskilled labor properly belong under the head of skilled 
labor and should be examined for individually as such. The positions 
of truckman and teamster, cited in the Commission's circular distinguish- 
ing between "classified" and "unclassified" duties and the position of 
deckhand, cited in the preceding note, are instances of this. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 469 

In the interests of economy and efficiency, and with a view 
to securing an accurate census not in any way colored or af- 
fected by political bias, the Commission urges that it be 
amended by striking out the word "non-competitive" and sub- 
stituting in lieu thereof the word "competitive." 

President Roosevelt considered the evils of non-competitive 
examinations in the Census Office great enough to make them 
the subject of a special message to Congress. He points out 
in that message that the majority of clerical employees of the 
last two censuses, appointed on the basis of political favor, 
were far below the average of persons of like grade appointed 
through competitive examinations. This is shown by actual 
comparison, and is emphasized by the highest authorities of 
census matters. Mr. Frederick H. Wines, assistant director 
of the Twelfth Census, says : "In making selections from the 
list of those who passed the examinations no attention what- 
ever was paid to their comparative rating. It was a 'pass' 
examination, pure and simple." 

With employees of inferior ability the work is unneces- 
sarily prolonged, the cost increased, and the accuracy of the 
census discredited. Hon. Carroll D. Wright maintains that 
there was a great waste of both time and money in carrying 
on the Eleventh Census. He says : "The absolute necessity 
of bringing the whole census force into the classified service, 
in accordance with the civil service act, 'seems to me perfectly 
apparent. Had this been the rule in the Eleventh Census there 
would have been, in my opinion, a saving of at least $2,000,000 
and more than a year's time." Subsequently investigation, 
resulting from this statement, proved it to be a conservative 
one. Labor costs rose far above the necessary level in the 
Twelfth Census. Mr. Harry T. Newcomb, chief of the divi- 
sion of agriculture, makes this statement in a letter to Presi- 
dent Roosevelt: "It was far easier, in my experience, to ob- 
tain a score of additional clerks at an annual cost of from 
$14,000 to $24,000 than to secure an expenditure of $1,000 
for supplies which would save the labor of twenty clerks." 
Business men in all parts of the country have condemned the 
method of appointments under non-competitive examinations 
as unbusinesslike and detrimental to the best interests of the 
nation. 

The President also states in his special message that non- 
competitive examinations serve only as a cloak to hide the 
nakedness of the spoils system. "Such examinations," he says, 



470 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

"are useless as checks upon patronage appointments." Fred- 
erick H. Wines says as regards the Twelfth Census "that 
there were numerous instances in which an unsuccessful appli- 
cant was granted a second, third, or fourth trial." No atten- 
tion was paid to the comparative ratings of those on the lists. 
"A rating of 75, with proper political or other indorsement," 
says Mr. Wines, "was sufficient to secure an appointment where 
a rating of 100 would count for nothing without it." Thus 
non-competitive examinations tend toward furnishing employ- 
ees of minimum efficiency, while competitive examinations in- 
sure the maximum of efficiency. 

The Director of the Census, instead of having his mind 
free to organize the bureau and supervise the important fi^ld 
work carried on by the supervisors and enumerators, would be 
forced to give a large portion of his time to politicians anxious 
to get their share of patronage. This was the case in 1890 
and 1900. Mr. Porter, who was then superintendent, made 
a statement about the system forced upon him in the census of 
1890 in part as follows: "Why transfer the Census Office at 
the busiest season into an examination department for clerks, 
and a director of a vast scientific investigation into a dispenser 
of political patronage? It is simply unjust to such an offi- 
cial." Dr. John Shaw Billings, in charge of the division of 
vital statistics of the Eleventh Census, said : "The whole of 
my work in the census has been done in the face of great ob- 
stacles, owing to repeated changes of clerks for political rea- 
sons, etc., and I am tired of struggling with the most unpro- 
pitious circumstances that have surrounded the work." 

The Commission also quotes from the report of the Di- 
rector of the Census for the fiscal year 1908, in which he says : 

A "non-competitive" examination means that every one 
of the many thousands who may pass the examination will have 
an equal right to appointment, and that personal and political 
pressure must in the end, as always before, become the deter- 
mining factor with reference to the great body of these tem- 
porary employments. I can not too earnestly urge that the 
Director of the Census be relieved from this unfortunate sit- 
uation. If these clerks can be appointed as needed, in the 
order certified from a competitive examination, a better service 
will be secured than will otherwise be possible, the efficiency 
of the force will be greatly increased, and the cost of the cen- 
sus correspondingly reduced. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 471 

The foregoing has been cited merely by way of Indicating 
the evils which may be inherent in a system of non-competitive 
or pass examination when conducted on a large scale for minor 
positions. It is not intended to imply that the positions taken 
by the Commission have any necessary application to the selec- 
tion of a much smaller force of high grade officers or em- 
ployees. Nevertheless, the conditions described by the Commis- 
sion indicate the type of evil to which a non-competitive system 
is subject and which, in every case, must be guarded against. 
Consular Service. — All positions in the foreign service 
lie outside the competitive classified service — the positions of 
consul and diplomatic secretary, because they are presidential 
positions,^ and the subordinate positions by virtue of a general 
exception from competition made by the civil service rules 
covering "any person employed in a foreign country under 
the State Department." ^ 

In point of numbers and Importance, the consuls are, of 
course, far the most important group in the foreign service. 

The desirability of eliminating political considerations from 
the selection of consuls was given official recognition in vary- 
ing forms long before any effective system for the purpose was 
actually developed. As early as 1856 Congress had authorized 
the President to provide regulations for the appointment of 
vice-consuls, consular agents, commercial agents, and so forth. 
In 1866 Secretary Seward prescribed a plan of non-competitive 
examinations to keep out unfit candidates for the consular 
service, and one examination was actually held under his or- 
ders. In 1872 other examinations were provided. Again in 
1895 provision was made for examinations embracing general 
education, business training, and experience, and requiring a 
knowledge of languages of the country to which the consul was 
to be sent, of the exequatur, of the powers and duties of con- 
suls, of treaties, of consular regulations, and of other subjects. 
An examination board was organized, and while at first the 

* The positions of ambassador and minister, of course, all fall under 
this head, but being filled without the use of any formal system of selec- 
tion, thfiy fall outside the scope of the present discussion. 

' Schedule A, I, 7. 



472 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

rules were strictly observed, and nearly 50 per cent of the men 
nominated were excluded, yet afterwards the examinations be- 
came merely perfunctory, and scarcely any of the men selected 
were rejected. 

Finally, in 1906, in response to an insistent demand from 
the business interests of the country. President Roosevelt, by 
Executive Order, established a system of non-competitive ex- 
aminations for entrance to the consular service that, with 
modifications, is still in force. 

The way was paved for this order by an act of Congress 
classifying the several consular offices by salary.^ 

The order of President Roosevelt provided that thereafter 
all vacancies in the position of consul. Class 7 (of which the 
salary is $3,000) ^ or any higher class should be filled by pro- 
motion, either from lower positions in the consular service 
or from positions in the State Department. For appointment 
to Classes 8 and 9 carrying salaries of $2,500 and $2,000, re- 
spectively, the order established the system of non-competitive 
examination about to be discussed. 

Under the order ^ a board of examiners for admission to 
the consular service is created, consisting of the Secretary of 
State or such officer of the Department of State as the Presi- 
dent may designate, the Director of the Consular Service and 
the Chief Examiner of the Civil Service Commission (or some 
other person whom the Commission may designate). In order 
to obtain admission to the examinations, designation of the 
candidate must be made by the President, who acts, of course, 
on the recommendation of the Department. The only official 
rule which has been promulgated relative to the designation is 
that contained in the original Executive Order which provides 
that "in designation for appointment subject to examination 

^Act of April 5, 1906, 34 Stat. 99. 

" Under a recent act the position of "Vice-Consul de carriere, Class 
II" with a salary of $2,750, has been set up between the grades of Con- 
sul, Class 7 (at $3,000) and Consul, Class 8 (at $2,500) ; and the execu- 
tive order has been correspondingly amended to require this new grade 
also to be filled only by promotion. 

'As amended on December 12, 1906, April 20, 1907, and December 8, 
1909.. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 473 

. . . due regard will be had to the rule that as between candi- 
dates of equal merit appointments should be made to secure 
proportional representation of all the states and territories in 
the consular service, and neither in the designation for ex- 
amination nor certification for appointment will the political 
affiliations of the candidate be considered." 

As to the extent to which political considerations do actually 
govern, it is extremely difficult to offer an opinion. The Com- 
mittee of the National Civil Service Reform League which, 
during the year 191 8-19, made an investigation into the per- 
sonnel aspects of the foreign service, was apparently unable 
to obtain any exact information on this point. In its report 
it says : ^ 

Your committee is informed that all applications are passed 
upon by the Third Assistant Secretary of State, who is him- 
self a political appointee. The Third Assistant Secretary of 
State does not, we are informed, have anything to do with 
the men once they are in the service, but is called upon to ex- 
amine and give his approval upon all examinations. We are 
informed — upon good authority — that the applications to take 
the examinations are only thrown out in those cases where 
they have been so short a time citizens of the United States 
that it might be inadvisable to give them an appointment, or 
else when, on the face of their applications, they are mani- 
festly unfit. Nevertheless, the proper method of excluding 
these men would seem to be in the examination itself. Nor 
does there appear to be any good reason why a political of- 
ficer should sit in the Department of State to watch over what- 
ever remains of patronage for distribution. 

The examination is held at Washington whenever the needs 
of the service require. The Committee of the National Civil 
Service Reform League which investigated the foreign service 
urged that the written examinations should be held in the prin- 
cipal cities. This recommendation seems wise, not only be- 

* Report on the Foreign Service, published by the National Civil Serv- 
ice Reform League, 1919, p. 24. The Director of the Consular Service 
has stated in response to a direct inquiry that '"in the past, nearly all of 
the men who presented their formal applications to the Department of 
State have been designated for examination." (Letter to the Institute 
for Government Research.) 



474 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

cause it would widen the interest in and the competition for 
these places, but also because as the committee pointed out, a 
more general representation from all parts of the country- 
would be obtained. Under present conditions, the committee 
states, despite the rule of apportionment, an undue proportion 
of the service is recruited from persons resident at the Capital, 
who are only nominal residents of the states to which they arq 
accredited in determining the quotas for apportionment pur- 
poses.^ The recommendation of the committee contemplates, 
of course, an oral examination at Washington of those who 
have passed the written examination successfully. 

The scope of examinations is determined in the first place 
by the original executive order, which provides that ''among 
the subjects shall be included at least one modern language 
other than English, the natural, industrial, and commercial re- 
sources and the commerce of the United States, especially with 
reference to the possibilities of increasing and extending the 
trade of the United States with foreign countries, political 
economy, elements of international commerce, and maritime 
law." Subject to these provisions the board of examiners is 
empowered to determine the scope and method of examination. 
In addition to the subjects thus prescribed by Executive Order, 
the examinations now embrace also arithmetic, American his- 
tory, government and institutions, and modern history. 

It is the practice for the Board of Examiners itself to rate 
the candidates on their oral examination. The written papers 
are referred to the Civil Service Commission for rating. The 
Executive Order provides that "examination papers shall be 
rated on the scale of lOO and no person rated at less than 80 
shall be eligible for certification," 

The section regarding certification provides that "whenever 
a vacancy shall occur in the 8th or 9th class of consuls which 
the President may deem it expedient to fill," the board of ex- 
aminers shall certify to the Secretary of State, who in turn 
transmits to the President "for his information," "the list of 

^ Report on the Foreign Service, published by the National Civil 
Service Reform League, 1919, p. 25. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 475 

those persons eligible for appointment, accompanying the cer- 
tificate with a detailed report showing the qualifications, as 
revealed by examination, of the persons so certified. If it be 
desired to fill a vacancy in a consulate in a country in which the 
United States exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction, the Secre- 
tary of State shall so inform the Board of Examiners, who 
shall include in the list of names certified by it only such 
persons as have passed the examination provided for in this 
order, and who also have passed an examination in the funda- 
mental principles of the common law, the rules of evidence, 
and the trial of civil and criminal cases." 

It will be noted that the provision of the executive order 
calling for apportionment among the states in designations for 
examination applies equally to appointments after examina- 
tion. There is little to be added to what has already been said 
with regard to the rule of apportionment as applied to the 
classified service. Discussing the matter with special reference 
to the foreign service the Committee on Foreign Service of 
the National Civil Service Reform League reached the conclu- 
sion that the rule of apportionment had outlived its useful- 
ness and should be entirely abolished. 

The committee of the National Civil Service Reform 
League unfortunately omitted to discuss one of the most im- 
portant phases of the examination system — the extent to which 
the relative ratings given by the board of examiners are per- 
mitted to control, subject to the apportionment requirement of 
the Executive Order just mentioned, in the final selection of 
names for recommendation to the President for nomination. 
Direct inquiry made of the Director of the Consular Service has 
elicited the statement that 

There is no rule requiring the selection of men from the 
eligible list in accordance with their examination standings. 
The Department does, however, give consideration to the 
standing of candidates on the eligible list when selecting men 
for appointment.^ 

* Letter to the Institute for Government Research, January 29, 1920. 



476 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The committee of the Reform League, while attempting 
no characterization of the existing situation with respect to 
the entrance of political influence in selection, recommends that 
the examinations be open to all and that the ratings of the suc- 
cessful candidates be published. Its recommendations on the 
matter of selection from among those successful are not 
entirely clear, but consistency would require that selec- 
tions be made substantially in accordance with the order of 
rating.^ 

The committee further recommends that the examinations 
be held under the auspices of the Civil Service Commission in- 
stead of under the auspices of the Department of State. The 
intent of all these recommendations is the same, namely, that 
regardless of the degree of fidelity to the merit principle with 
which the department may administer its closed non-competi- 
tive system of selection, it is desirable that the system be placed 
upon a basis which will, so to speak, give notice to the world 
that it is actuated solely by considerations of merit. As long 
as the present closed non-competitive system exists, the public 
cannot have full confidence in its administration. 
Diplomatic Service. — Formalized methods of selection 
were applied to the diplomatic service four years after they 
had been successfully applied to the consular service. By order 
of November 26, 1909, President Taft, in addition to order- 
ing a classification of the secretaryships in the diplomatic 
service "according to the importance, volume, difficulty, or other 
aspects of the work done by each mission in proportion to 
the number of men allotted to it," and prescribing that "un- 
official appointments from outside the service . . . should be 
made only to the lower grades," created a board "to deter- 

^ The committee recommends that those successful in the written 
examination be examined orally at Washington and that "candidates who 
pass the oral examination be given a period of trial and instruction in 
the Department of State before nomination for appointment." These 
recommendations do not seem to contemplate the possibility that a num- 
ber passing the oral examination and thus placed on trial in the De- 
partment of State may substantially exceed the number actually required 
to fill current vacancies. Clearly selection must be made from among 
those who pass the oral examination only to a number sufficient to meet 
anticipated needs. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 477 

mine the qualifications of persons designated by the President 
for examination, to determine their fitness for possible appoint- 
ment as secretaries of embassy or legation." This board now 
consists of the Assistant Secretary of State, the Third As- 
sistant Secretary of State, the solicitor for the Department of 
State, the chief of the diplomatic bureau, the chief of the bu- 
reau of appointments, and the Chief Examiner of the Civil 
Service Commission, or such persons as may be designated to 
service in their stead. The subjects of examination do not 
differ materially from those prescribed for the consular service 
except that diplomatic usage is included. The method of ex- 
amination, and the practice in certification and appointment, 
are substantially the same as in the consular service. 

In 1 910, President Taft, in a message to Congress, recom- 
mended that the application of the merit principle to the con- 
sular and diplomatic service be given a statutory character. He 
stated his conviction "that the enactment into law of the general 
principles of the existing executive regulations could not fail 
to effect further improvement of both branches of the foreign 
service." ^ Similarly, in 191 7, the Civil Service Commission 
declared that "the system of appointment to the Consular 
Service rests upon an Executive Order and does not have the 
sanction of Congress. It is believed that if the system were 
supported by statute there would be wider public persuasion 
of its stability." ^ 

Non-competitive examinations are given by the State De- 
partment for the positions of consular assistant and student 
interpreter.^ The differences between the methods in use for 
these positions and those already reviewed in connection with 
the consular service are too unimportant to warrant detailed 
examination. 

* Quoted from Twenty-seventh Report of the United States Civil 
Service Commission (1910), p. 33. 

* Thirty-fourth Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1917), p. xviii. 

* Clerks in consular offices are appointed without formal examination 
of any kind. There is special statutory provision (R. S., Sees. 1704 and 
1705) for the appointment by the President, after examination, of 13 
"consular clerks," but this provision is obsolete. 



478 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Public Health Service Medical OfBcers. — The system of 
selection for the medical officers ^ of the Public Health Service 
is not only a non-competitive system, but is unique in that it is 
administered wholly by the service itself. As has been pointed 
out in a preceding chapter all medical officers of the service 
are "presidential" appointees and the system of selection is 
based upon a provision of law prescribing that "no person 
shall be appointed as a medical officer of the service until after 
passing a satisfactory examination in the several branches of 
surgery, medicine, and hygiene before a board of medical offi- 
cers of the said service." ^ Thus it would appear that in the 
case of this service it would be beyond the power of the Presi- 
dent, despite the blanket authority over methods of selection 
conferred upon him by the statutes, to substitute for the ex- 
amination by a board of officers of the service an examination 
by the Civil Service Commission or any other organization ; but 
there is nothing in this act that would prohibit him from es- 
tablishing such a system of examination in addition to, and 
either before or after, the examination by the board of the 
service. He could moreover require such examination, and 
indeed even the statutory examination, to be an open competi- 
tive examination. 

Prospective candidates for examination submit through the 
Surgeon General, on a blank form provided, a statement of 
training and experience and on the basis of this, designation 
for examination is either made or withheld. Those designated 
for examination are subjected to both an oral and written ex- 
amination, conducted by a board composed of medical officers 
of the service. 

The present practice is to designate for examination vir- 
tually all applicants, only those manifestly unfit being denied 

^ This applies only to the permanent commissioned medical officers of 
the service. Temporary non-commisaioned officers are frequently ap- 
pointed under the title of "acting assistant surgeon." These positions 
fall in the competitive classified service, and selection for appointment 
to them is by the regular system of competitive examination conducted 
by the Civil Service Commission. There is also in the Public Health 
Service a scientific personnel, which is appointed after certification by 
the Civil Service Commission. 

^ Act of January 4, 1889, 25 Stat. 639. 



THE UNCLASSIFIED SERVICE 479 

entrance to the examination. Moreover, while there is no 
absolute rule, the relative order of rating established by the 
examination is in general the order in which the candidates 
are recommended to the President for nomination. The sys- 
tem may be thus described as one of informal open competitive 
examination, the principle of open competition being given 
full recognition without being formally established. The ques- 
tion whether this informal system of open competition should 
give way to one in which the principle of open competition 
is formally recognized is thus one which has only a secondary 
importance from a practical standpoint. On general principles, 
however, the change is to be recommended as tending to 
insure a fuller confidence on the part of the public in the fair- 
ness of the examination process. 

A similar position may be taken with respect to the par- 
ticipation of the Civil Service Commission in the process of 
examination. At the present time, as indicated, it has abso- 
lutely no connection with these examinations. Doubtless its 
participation would do little if anything to improve the caliber 
of those recruited by the examination, or to make the ex- 
aminations more economical or more satisfactory from a tech- 
nical standpoint,' but like the conversion of the system to one 
of open competition rather than of non-competitive designation 
and selection, it would place upon the whole system of selec- 
tion much more publicly and definitively the stamp of impar- 
tiality. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MAINTENANCE OF INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY 

The preceding group of chapters have concerned themselves 
primarily with the problem of filling a given position with the 
most capable person available. It is to this general problem, 
that of selection, that discussion of the personnel problem is 
usually confined. To the equally important problem of how 
to engage the interest and zeal of the employee when selected, 
or, failing that, how to secure his elimination from the service, 
public attention is seldom directed. 

The prospect of promotion, or even of assignment to more 
agreeable or more promising duties, as a reward for faithful 
service, is, of course, in itself a valuable stimulus to such 
service; and, in the chapters dealing with promotion and as- 
signment methods, the need of emphasizing this phase of the 
promotion or assignment process in devising those methods 
was insisted upon. These alone, however, are not sufficient. 
They must be supplemented by other efforts having for their 
purpose to appeal directly to the self-interest of the employee, 
and to build up a morale or esprit de corps in the service as a 
whole. 

The extent to which such other efforts are made, aside 
from the enlargement of the opportunity for advancement, to 
reward the individual employee in proportion to his faithful- 
ness and his results will determine perhaps more than any 
other single element or group of elements the net efficiency 
of the service. The importance to the whole problem of per- 
sonnel administration of the inquiry to which the present chap- 
ter is devoted, therefore, can hardly be overstated. Hand in 
hand with methods for rewarding zeal and efficiency must go 
methods for penalizing slothfulness, incompetence or miscon- 

480 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 481 

duct, and, where necessary, for eliminating altogether from the 
service those who do not prove amenable to any milder 
measures. 

Methods of reward or punishment fall chiefly under two 
heads — those affecting the compensation of the employee with- 
out necessarily affecting his status or position, and those affect- 
ing his status or position, whether as respects promotion, as- 
signment, lay-off, reduction, or dismissal. Manifestly it is 
in the field of compensation that the most direct and positive 
stimulus to zeal and effort is to be found. 
Records as a Means of Promoting Individual Efficiency. — 
At the forefront of administrative measures having for their 
purpose the stimulation of individual effort is establishing in 
the minds of employees the fact that their work is under con- 
stant scrutiny and that the extent to which they render good 
or bad service will be brought to the attention of their superior 
officers. The maintenance of efficiency records thus has a 
value beyond that of furnishing information upon which pro- 
motions will be partly based. 

In the discussion of the place of efficiency records in pro- 
motion, the position was taken that, invaluable as such records 
might be in assisting or qualifying the judgment of administra- 
tive officers in making selection for promotion, they could not 
ordinarily be safely relied upon as a mechanical or automatic 
method of making such selection, or even as a major factor 
entering into any other mechanical or automatic method. In 
connection with most of the matters forming the subject of 
the present chapter, however, no such difficult selective func- 
tion is required of the efficiency record. It is sufficient that 
the record be of the more simple character suggested as suitable 
, for use merely as a basis for action on promotions, though 
the record may be given much greater, and in some cases, 
controlling influence. Again, in the interests of uniformity, 
as between the several branches of a department, or bureau, 
it is desirable that the records should all be reviewed by a cen- 
tral board composed of representatives of the several branches; 
but such review need merely seek to effect the observance by all 



482 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

officers charged with making entries on efficiency records of 
a consistent and uniform practice and standard, rather than, 
as in the case of promotion records to which controUing in- 
fluence is given, to revise individual ratings. 
Piece Work as a Means of Promoting Individual Effi- 
ciency. — The most obvious methods of rewarding effi- 
ciency through compensation are those of piece-work rates 
and bonuses, or combinations of both methods. These meth- 
ods, of course, are adapted peculiarly, if not solely, to indus- 
trial production. Their limitations as applied to governmental 
operations are obvious; nevertheless the field over which the 
method is already applied is larger than is commonly appreci- 
ated, as is also the area of possible extension. Piece-work rates 
are already employed in the arsenals and the naval ordnance 
factories in the operations in those establishments which are 
capable of being computed on such a basis. In the printing 
of the paper currency, too, piece-work rates are largely em- 
ployed. The largest unoccupied field for the application of 
this principle at the present time would seem to be in certain of 
the clerical organizations in the departments at Washington, 
where the work is of a routine, standardized nature and the 
quantity of output can be accurately measured. During the 
war, when administrative methods were largely in the hands 
of men without previous government experience, and when 
compensation matters were left to administrative discretion 
to an unusual extent, this method was applied, indeed, in sev- 
eral cases to clerical work in Washington, and with excellent 
results. 

Periodic Salary Increases as a Means of Promoting In- 
dividual Efficiency. — For far the greater part of the 
federal service, however, no method based on exact measure- 
ment of the quantity of work produced is possible. For those 
employments to which the methods of piece-work rates or 
bonuses are not applicable, comprising far the greater num- 
ber of positions in the federal service, the cognate method of 
rewarding effort and efficiency is that of increasing the com- 
pensation rate. The distinction between a mere increase in 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 483 

compensation and a promotion or a reassignment to new duties 
has been drawn already. The method of increasing compen- 
sation rates encountered in most small organizations is that 
of giving consideration, usually at stated intervals, to the 
possibility, in view of the financial conditions of the organiza- 
tion, of increasing the compensation of such of the employees 
as seem deserving. The obvious difficulty with this method 
of determining salary increases is its uncertainty to the em- 
ployee. There is no fixed standard by which he may know in 
advance whether or not he is earning an increase. Moreover, 
the standard is not merely undefined but it may, and almost 
invariably does, vary from time to time, so that inequality in 
rates between those doing substantially the same work and 
with substantially the same efficiency results. In their reaction 
from the situation produced by this method of handling the 
problem some large organizations have gone to the opposite 
extreme and adopted the policy of "automatic" increases of 
salary. Under this plan, a range of rates is fixed for each 
position or grade of work, the rates increasing by rather small 
increments, at fixed periods. As many as five or six differ- 
ent rates are thus provided for the same position or grade, 
seldom more. The result is a system under which the em- 
ployee may remain for a considerable period without proijio- 
tion and yet be continually automatically advancing in com- 
pensation through the period. 

The theory upon which this method of increasing compen- 
sation is defended is that it may be assumed that any employee 
who performs his work sufficiently satisfactorily to escape 
dismissal or reduction necessarily increases in his value to 
the organization with length of service, or within the limits 
of the period mentioned, even though his duties remain un- 
changed. In the large, this is doubtlessly true. There is, how- 
ever, a considerable proportion of cases in which this is not 
so. The method is thus open to the serious criticism that it 
is of no value in spurring on the individual to increased ei¥ort. 
Another ground on which the system of wholly automatic sal- 
ary increases is defended is that, regardless of the actual 



484 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

increase in the value of the employee's services with increasing 
length of service, the method is of value in that it makes for 
a more contented frame of mind on the part of most of the 
employees than does a flat rate. 

Between the two extremes of the system in which each 
salary increase is regarded as an original question and one 
in which salary increases are automatic and subject to no ques- 
tion, lies what might be termed a semi-automatic system. In 
this, while the regular award of the periodic increase is 
regarded as the normal condition, a measure of discretion is 
imposed on the administrative superiors of the employee in 
withholding the award of the increase under certain defined 
conditions; and perhaps also of awarding increases at other 
than the regular periods or in amounts greater than the 
regular amounts for superior efficiency, also under defined con- 
ditions. This system preserves substantially all the value in- 
herent in a system of automatic increases and yet permits the 
salary increases to be used as a means for maintaining and 
spurring on individual efficiency. 

For the success of such a system it is necessary that a 
normal or reasonable standard of efficiency be first defined, 
a failure to attain which during the period fixed will result 
in the withholding of the employee's increase for that period, 
and that means be provided for determining in the case of 
each employee whether this standard has, or has not, been 
attained. 

It may be urged that such a regulation is illogical in that 
an employee who does not show such proficiency should be 
dismissed out of hand. It is hard to meet this attack on a 
theoretical basis; but for practical purposes it is sufficient to 
say that the cold-blooded application of a canon so seemingly 
just is not workable in any personnel system and certainly not 
in the federal service. In a subsequent section suggestions 
are made looking to the strengthening of the service generally 
through lessening the difficulty standing in the way of admin- 
istrative officers in removing or demoting the inefficient. But 
fven were the condition to which these suggestions lool? 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 



485 



realized, there would still remain a twilight zone in which 
the inefficiency of the employee would not be sufficiently glar- 
ing to impel the administrative officers to act. It is in this 
class of cases that the method of withholding annual or other 
periodic increments from the sub-standard employee finds its 
proper application. 

It is not easy to characterize the present situation in the 
federal service with respect to the application of the several 
methods of awarding the increases in compensation just traced. 
The wholly automatic method is to be found in only two serv- 
ices — the Public Health Service and the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey — and the system here is not precisely that above out- 
lined as the automatic system, being based upon the army 
system of "longevity" pay. Under this system, 10 per cent 
is added to the "base pay" of the grade occupied by the officer 
for each five years of service, counting from his entrance into 
the service, and regardless of his length of service in the grade. 
A maximum of 40 per cent increase, attained at the end of 20 
years' service is fixed ; and certain maximum salaries, less than 
would be reached under the 40 per cent maximum, are fixed for 
the higher grade.^ This system of "longevity" applies only to 
the commissioned medical officers. 

The regulations of the Public Health Service approved 
August 29, 1920, provide for longevity pay for the noh-com- 

^ These maximum salaries are as follows : 





Base 
Pay 


Maximum Base and 
Longevity Pay 


Maximum Longevity 
Increase 


Surgeons and Lieut. 
Commanders .... 

Senior Surgeons and 
Commanders .... 

Assistant Surgeons 
General and Cap- 
tains 


$3,000 
$3,500 

$4,000 


$4,000 
$4,500 

$5,000 


$1,000— 33>^% 
$1,000 — 28.5% 

$1,000 — 25% 





These officers were granted temporary increased pay until June 30, 
1922, by the Act of May 18, 1920 (41 Stat. 601), but this increase was a 
fixed sum for each grade and does alter the base pay and maximum Ijase 
and longevity pay. 



486 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

missioned employees known as the scientific personnel and for 
administrative assistants. The Sundry Civil Act for the fiscal 
year 1922, approved March 4, 1921/ under the heading 
Bureau of War Risk Insurance prohibits the use of any 
"money hereby appropriated" for longevity pay to "any em- 
ployee other than the commissioned medical officers provided 
for by statute." While technically this legislation would prob- 
ably apply only to employees paid from funds transferred to 
the Public Health Service by the Bureau of War Risk Insur- 
ance,^ it is likely that it was the intention of the framers of the 
law to have it apply to all persons in the Public Health Service. 
Moreover there would be great administrative difficulty in 
allowing longevity pay to persons paid from one appropriation 
and denying it to those doing similar work and paid from 
another appropriation. The amended regulations covering this 
situation had not been issued as this report goes to press. 

In the Coast and Geodetic Survey the act of May 18, 1920,^ 
provides that commissioned officers of that organization should 
receive the same pay and allowances, including longevity as 
officers in the Navy with whom they hold relative rank.* 

Semi-automatic systems of salary increases are found in 
the postal service with respect to postal clerks and railway 
mail clerks. The law her^ places a considerable discretion 
in the hands of the Postmaster General. The salary of postal 
clerks, assistant superintendents of delivery, mails, money 
order, registry, stations, etc., are all graded, the difference 

*4i Stat. 1374. 

* Charged to Veterans' Bureau by Act of August 9, 1921. 
%i Stat. 603. 

* The Act of May 22, 1917 (40 Stat. 84) provides that officers in the 
Coast and Geodetic Survey designated assistants and receiving more 
than $2000 per annum should be appointed hydrographic and geodetic 
engineers, that officers designated assistants and receiving betwreen $1200 
and $2000 should be appointed junior hydrographic and geodetic _ en- 
gineers, and that officers designated as aides should be appointed aides. 
The Act further provides that the Coast and Geodetic Survey may be 
transferred to the Army or Navy during a time of national emergency 
and prescribes the rank of commissioned officers at various salaries when 
serving with the Army and Navy. The Act of May 18, 1920 (41 Stat, 
603) provided Ijhat the commissioned officers of the Coast and Geodetic 
Survey should thereafter receive the pay and allowances of officers of 
the Navy with whom they hold relative rank as prescribed in the Act 
of May 22, 1917. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 487 

between each grade and the next being usually $100, though 
in the higher positions $100 differences alternate with $200 and, 
in a few cases, even with $300 and $400 increases.^ The law 
provides that promotions shall be made annually, and that "no 
promotion shall be made except upon evidence satisfactory to 
the Post Office Department of the efficiency and faithfulness 
of the employee during the preceding year," and that "the 
Post Office Department may reduce a clerk from a higher to a 
lower grade whenever his efficiency falls below a fair stand- 
ard or whenever necessary for purposes of discipline." When 
a clerk or carrier has been reduced in salary he may be restored 
to his former grade or advanced to an intermediate grade at 
the beginning of any quarter following the reduction, on evi- 
dence that his record has been satisfactory during the inter- 
vening period. When a clerk or carrier fails of promotion be- 
cause of unsatisfactory service he may be promoted at the 
beginning of the second quarter thereafter, or of any subsie- 
quent quarter, on evidence that his record has been satisfac- 
tory during the intervening period. Clerks and carriers of the 
highest grade in their respective offices shall be eligible for 
promotion to the higher positions in said post offices.^ In the 
railway mail service, in addition to a similar classification, it 
was specifically provided by act of 1912 ^ that "clerks in Class 
A shall be promoted successively to Class B, and clerks in Class 
B shall be promoted to Class C," and the restriction is imposed 
upon making any other advances in grade by the Postmaster 
General that "in filling positions below that of chief clerk 
no clerk shall be advanced more than one grade in a period of 
a year." In passing upon the efficiency of the several em- 
ployees for the purpose of withholding the increases from 
those who have not attained a fair standard of "efficiency 
and faithfulness" the Department does not rely entirely upon 
the record of actual performance of the employee during the 

^ Typical gradings are assistant superintendent of delivery, $1,200, 
$1,300, $1,400, $1,500, $1,600, $1,700, $1,800, $2,000, $2,400: superintendent 
of carriers, $1,000, $1,100, $1,200, $1,300, $1,400, $1,500, $1,600, $1,700, 
$1,800, $2,100, $2,500. 

^Act of March 2, 1907, 34 Stat. 1206. 

*Act of August 24, 1912, 37 Stat. 556. 



488 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

preceding year but subjects certain classes of employees to 
periodical tests of efficiency (particularly tests in speed and 
accuracy in sorting and classifying mail) by the results of 
which the efficiency rating upon which the salary increase is 
made is largely determined. 

A factor which helps to make possible the enforcement in 
the postal service of an impersonal standard of efficiency is 
the enormous size of the organization. The formulation of 
a policy of this kind is in the hands of officers far removed 
from contact with the personnel actually affected by it, and 
indeed equally far removed from the subordinate administra- 
tive officers who are commanded to carry out the policy, and 
who are thus impelled by and may plead the superior force of 
a higher and unappeasable authority. Still another element 
in the Post Office situation of which account must be taken 
is that the work is of a standardized nature, so that individual 
inefficiency is very clearly and unmistakably discernible. 

Aside from the postal service, the only other branch of 
the service in which a semi-automatic system of salary increases 
prevails is that of the assistant examiners of the Patent Office, 
of whom there are now 380 allowed by law. These are in 
four grades, receiving compensation rates of $2,400, $2,100, 
$1,800 and $1,500 respectively. The number of positions in 
each grade is the same and is fixed by law. It is thus not 
possible for an automatic system of advancement from one 
grade to the next at regular periods to be applied. Advance- 
ment can be had only when a vacancy occurs in the higher 
grade; and, when such vacancy occurs, the advancement of 
one of the examiners in the lower grade to the higher grade is 
invariable, the selection being determined by a rating which 
is the resultant of the factors of previous efficiency, length 
of service, and the rating received on a competitive examina- 
tion open to all members of the grade. The precise way in 
which these three factors are combined is of less interest than 
the fact that the examination is not necessarily related to the 
precise technical subject matter of the examiner's duties, since 
this is usually different for each one, but rather to patent prac- 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 489 

tice and law generally, so that it furnishes no proper test of 
the efficiency in the past of the several examiners. 

It might be thought that this system is not a system 
of salary increases but rather of promotions, inasmuch as an 
examiner receiving $2,400, is presumably doing a higher grade 
of work than is the examiner receiving only $1,500. This is 
manifestly so, but the system is nevertheless one of salary 
increases for the reason that the four salary rates do not cor- 
respond to any clearly defined differences in duty or in the 
difficulty of the work assigned. This is conclusively demon- 
strated by the fact that an examiner may wait for years for 
a vacancy in the higher grade, all the time doing a given class 
of work which may in fact be as high as that performed by 
some or many of the examiners in the next grade. The per- 
formance of the duties does not in and of itself carry the 
higher compensation, and when an examiner advances from 
one grade to the next there may not be either then or subse- 
quently any change in his duties. Indeed, even when rated 
in Grade 3, certainly in Grade 2, he may be performing duties 
as difficult and responsible as it is possible for an assistant ex- 
aminer even of Grade i to perform. 

Over the remainder of the federal service no general sys- 
tem of salary increases, whether automatic or semi-automatic, 
is in existence. Over all the enormous clerical, technical, and 
specialized employments, outside the areas already mentioned, 
the question of compensation increases is, in almost all cases, 
still handled in the unsystematic primitive manner which has 
been described above as being characteristic of small and 
struggling organizations. With respect to statutory positions, 
as has already been pointed out, increases can be made only 
when Congress, or rather the appropriations committee, per- 
mits. Within the area where administrative officers have dis- 
cretion in the fixing of compensation rates, it cannot be said 
that much progress has been made toward the development 
of an ordered system of increases. These officers are, needless 
to say, in the absence of Congressional cooperation or author- 
ity, under grave disadvantages in attempting to develop any, 



490 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

such methods. In most services, the estabHshment of such 
a system will involve, for a period, an increase in the size of 
the payroll and consequently in the size of the appropriation 
required. Not only has Congress not authorized any such 
program, but it has definitely prohibited it by the enactment 
in 1912 of the act already referred to,^ providing that "no 
part of the money appropriated in lump sum shall be available 
for the payment of personal service at a rate of compensa- 
tion in excess of that paid for the same or similar services 
during the preceding fiscal year." 

Recommendation of the Reclassification Commission Re- 
garding Salary Increases. — In considering this phase of the 
personnel problem it is important to note that no satis- 
factory system of salary increases, v^hether automatic or based 
upon determined efficiency, can be established, until the whole 
problem of classification and standardization of positions and 
salaries has been solved. The pending reclassificaition of the 
service at Washington, and the hoped-for extension of the 
reclassification to the field services, will make possible the 
institution of the automatic increase in many branches of 
the service in which, up to the present, it has been almost a 
technical impossibility, even in the absence of financial limita- 
tions. _ 

The recommendations of the Reclassification Commission 
with respect to salary increases within grades in the Washing- 
ton service are summarized in the following quotations from 
its report : 

The Commission recommends that hereafter appointments 
to positions in the Washington service be made at the mini- 
mum rates provided by the schedules of compensation applying 
to the respective classes of positions; that the compensation 
of an employee in no case be increased beyond the maximum 
prescribed for his position, and that periodical increases in 
the rates of compensation of employees within the ranges pre- 
scribed for their respective positions be made from rate to rate 
as set forth in the respective schedules, upon recommendation 

^Act of August 26, 1912 (37 Stat. 626) as amended by act of March 
4, 1913 (37 Stat. 790). 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 491 

by the head of the department, bureau, or independent estab- 
lishment, approved by the Classification Agency, such approval 
to be based on the evidence of current efficiency records or 
such other testimony as the Classification Agency may require 
to the effect that the employee has rendered service of a sat- 
isfactory standard and has increased his usefulness to the 
Government since the date of his last advance in pay. In the 
case of schedules where no intermediate rates are prescribed, 
the Commission recommends that the time of increases in pay 
and the amounts of such increases be based on the recom- 
mendation of the department head, the approval of the Clas- 
sification Agency also to be required in each case.^ 

The Commission believes that the classification which it is 
recommending will not only bring about a standardization of 
duties and compensation, but will make possible the application 
of a progressive policy in the advancement of employees which 
will put new life and efficiency into the entire service. In 
nearly all of the classes, suggested minimum, maximum and 
intermediate rates of compensation are provided. It is the 
belief of the Commission that an employee on entering any 
class should be paid the minimum rate prescribed for that 
class, and should be advanced through the intermediate rates 
to the maximum only on the basis of demonstrated efficiency. 
Furthermore, the Commission believes that with successive sal- 
ary advancements, the standard of required efficiency should 
be increased so as to enable only the most efficient employees 
to secure the maximum rate. Thus, if four rates of pay were 
provided for a given class, an efficiency rating of 80 per cent 
might be required for advancement from the minimum to 
the next higher rate, 85 per cent to the next higher, and 90 
per cent to the maximum. Failure on the part of any em- 
ployee to maintain the standard of efficiency set for the rate 
being paid should be followed by his reduction to a lower sal- 
ary rate in the same class the rate to be determined by his 
efficiency rating; while failure at any time to maintain a mini- 
mum standard of efficiency as prescribed by the Civil Service 
Commission, should be followed by dismissal.^ 

It will be noted that the Reclassification Commission pro- 
poses that the Civil Service Commission shall be satisfied, in 
each case, that an employee has reached the required standard 

^Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 71. 
"Ibid., p. 123. 



492 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of efficiency before increase of compensation is granted. The 
Reclassification Commission does not make any suggestions 
as to how this responsibility is to be discharged. It would 
seem that the most that the Commission could do would be 
to exercise a general supervision over the procedure and the 
standards enforced in the several departments in the main- 
tenance of efficiency records ; and that the question as to whether 
any particular individual had or had not attained the re- 
quired standard of efficiency, would have to be determined 
by the efficiency record established by the department. 
Liability to Demotion and Dismissal as a Means of Pro- 
moting Individual Efficiency. — From the negative side the 
most important means for insuring individual efficiency lies 
in the possession by those in authority of the power to demote 
or dismiss those employees who do not perform their work 
satisfactorily. This means of control is effective, however, 
only if it is rigidly exercised when circumstances warrant. In 
private undertakings for gain few difficulties lie in the way 
of such exercise. Not only does the profit element consti- 
tute a strong incentive to its use, but those upon whom re- 
sponsibility for action rests as a rule~do not have to secure 
the approval of any superior authority and only rarely have 
to justify their action. In a government conditions are 
radically different. Not only is the profit element usually 
absent, but those directly in charge of operations are rarely 
free to act, due to the fact that superior sanction must often 
be obtained. 

It results from this that it is exceedingly difficult to se- 
cure from public administration anything like the exercise 
of the power of demotion or dismissal that conditions in the 
several services more than warrant. It is open knowledge 
that many employees who are notoriously incompetent and in- 
efficient are retained on the rolls, though the character of 
their work is well known by those in charge of them. 

One of the changes urgently needed in the federal service, 
therefore, is the taking of those steps which will tend to in- 
sure a more vigorous exercise of the disciplinary power. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 493 

The problem Is one that must be attacked from a number 
of standpoints. One of the factors militating against a proper 
use of this power at the present time, consists in the fact 
that in the federal service the power of removal is vested, 
for the most part, in the head of the department rather than 
in the bureau chief. Since the conditions and necessities of 
the public service are not those that, in any case, make for a 
firm exercise of the removal power, the investment of the 
head of the department rather than the bureau head with 
the final legal authority for removal constitutes a division of 
responsibility which still further lessens the probability that 
the power will be vigorously exercised. The situation is well 
illustrated in the case of a local employee who is appointed 
by the head of the department. The final responsibility for his 
removal rests not on the local chief nor yet upon the chief of 
the bureau at Washington, but upon the secretary of the de- 
partment. Thus the local chief and the chief of the bureau 
are each in turn relieved of the necessity for final action 
and may shift that responsibility to their superiors. The net 
result is a system of circumlocution and delay in handling 
questions of reduction and removal which is one of the dis- 
tinguishing defects of the federal personnel system. 

To all these factors making for a lack of firmness and 
vigor in the exercise of the power of removal and reduction 
is added the intervention of political or personal influence on 
behalf of the employee affected. It is here that Congressional 
influence is invoked particularly with a regularity not found 
with respect to any other phase of personnel administration. 
While some Congressmen are able to resist the importunities 
of their constituents who seek appointment, promotion, trans- 
fer, or the like, it is rarely indeed that a Congressman will 
not interest himself seriously in the case of a constituent 
who has been dismissed or reduced or is threatened with dis- 
missal or reduction. Instances are not unknown in which 
the entire Congressional delegation (both Senate and House) 
from a State has intervened personally on behalf of a dis- 
missed employee. Against this form of intervention it is 



494 i THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

difficult to provide in the removal procedure itself. The 
remedy here lies, as has been urged in the chapter dealing 
with political interference, in positive and express statutory- 
prohibition against such interference. 

A device that has been found highly useful in some juris- 
dictions has been that of vesting the power of removal over 
subordinate employees, concurrently with the power possessed 
by the administrative officer, in the Civil Service Commission 
or other central personnel agency, such power to be ex- 
ercised, however, only upon the complaint of a citizen. Under 
this procedure any citizen having cause of complaint against 
an employee may file such complaint, if he choose, with the 
central personnel agency instead of with the administrative 
superior of the employee, and that agency may proceed to 
investigate the case and to remove, reduce, suspend, or other- 
wise discipline the employee. Testimony seems to be unani- 
mous that this procedure has been found very useful whenever 
it has been employed. 

It is clear that this method is applicable only to the rela- 
tively small portion of the personnel that comes into contact 
with the public in some way. The proportion of employees 
to whom it would apply is probably smaller in the federal 
service than in most of the municipal jurisdictions in which 
it has been applied. Nevertheless there are large areas of the 
federal service to which it would be applicable, and it is diffi- 
cult to think of any reason why it should not be applied to 
them, at least experimentally. 

Finally it should be noted that whatever reluctance is 
now found among administrative officers to exercise vigorously 
the power of removal and reduction is not due to any statutory 
limitation on, or impediment to, the exercise of that power. 
There is a notion abroad — and it might be remarked that the 
same erroneous impression prevails with respect to the civil 
service laws of most jurisdictions — that existing statutory 
provisions place clear restrictions upon the power of the 
administrative officer in dismissal and reduction. Nothing 
could be further from the truth. As will appear directly, the 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 495 

power of the administrative officer to dismiss and reduce an 
employee is, throughout the service, for practical purposes, 
as untrammeled as is that of the ordinary business executive, 
except in so far as the power is located at a higher level in 
the organization than is common in business organizations, 
a point to which reference has been made already. 
Existing Law and Regulations Governing Dismissals. — 
The civil service law itself makes no requirement as to the 
procedure to be followed in removal. Indeed the only men- 
tion which it makes of the matter of removal is in connection 
with political assessments. It forbids any "officer or employee 
of the United States mentioned in this act," that is, a Sen- 
ator, Representative, territorial delegate of the Congress, or 
Senator-, Representative- or delegate-elect, or any officer or 
employee of either House, or any executive, judicial, military, 
or naval officers of the United States, or any clerk or em- 
ployee in any department, branch, or bureau of the executive, 
judicial, military, or naval services of the United States, to 
"discharge, promote, or degrade, or in any manner change the 
official rank or compensation of any other officer or employee 
or promise or threaten to do so, for giving or withholding or 
neglecting to make any contribution of money or other valu- 
able thing for any political purpose." ^ 

The civil service rules carry this prohibition somewhat 
further. Thus the revision of the rules promulgated May 
6, 1896, provided that 

No person in the executive civil service shall dismiss or 
cause to be dismissed, or make any attempt to procure the dis- 
missal of, or in any manner change the official rank or com- 
pensation of, any other person therein because of his political 
or religious opinions or affiliations. 

And the present rules provide that 

In making removals or reductions, and in other punish- 
ment, like penalties shall be imposed for like offenses, and no 
discrimination shall be exercised for political or religious rea- 
sons. 

* Section 13, now embodied in Section 120, Criminal Code. 



496 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

In 1897 there was added to the rules for the first time a 
provision specifying a procedure to be followed in making 
removals.-^ This provision which, unlike the merely directory 
provison above cited, applied only to the removals from com- 
petitive positions, called for the reasons for removal to 
be given in writing, together with notice and opportunity for 
answer and the entry of the whole on the official records.^ 

This provision remained in force only a few years. In 
1905 the requirement of notice, reasons in writing, and oppor- 
tunity to answer was limited to cases in which the removal 
was made by an officer subordinate to the head of the depart- 
ment.^ The change was made by President Roosevelt as the 
result of his witnessing an act of misconduct by an employee 
which he regarded as so gross as not to merit even the rather 
slight protective procedure required by the rules.* 

In 191 2 the procedure required by the rule of 1897 was 
again restored, with the additional provision that copy of the 
records of the case should be furnished to the Civil Service 
Commission on request. In the same year, substantially the 
wording of the rule was enacted into law by Congress. The 

'Three years before (on June 28, 1894), Postmaster General W. S. 
Bissell had issued a similar order covering the removal of carriers in free 
delivery offices. 

* This provision, promulgated July 27, 1897, as Section 8 of Rule 2 
reads as follows : "No removal shall be made from the competitive 
classified service except for just cause and for reasons given in writing; 
and the person sought to be removed shall have notice and be furnished 
a copy of such reasons, and be allowed a reasonable time for person- 
ally answering the same in writing. Copy of such reasons, notice, and 
answer and of the order of removal shall be made a part of the records 
of the proper Department or office." 

By a "declaration of the meaning" of this section officially promul- 
gated by President Roosevelt in 1902, it was declared "that the term 
'just cause,' as used in section 8, Civil Service Rule II, is intended to 
mean any cause, other than one merely political or religious, which 
will promote the efficiency of the service ; and nothing contained in said 
rule shall be construed to require the examination of witnesses or any 
trial or hearing except in the discretion of the officer making the re- 
moval." 

Subsequently the Commission held that three days would satisfy the 
requirement of a "reasonable time" for the employee to answer. 

^ This rule referred to removal by the President in the same terms 
as removal by the head of a department, but there has never been any 
competitive position to which appointment, and hence removal, has been 
made by the President. 

* Foulke, Fighting the Spoilsmen, p. 174. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 497 

wording of this provision, which appears in the act of August 
24, 1912/ is as follows: 

That no person in the classified service of the United States 
shall be removed therefrom except for such cause as will pro- 
mote the efficiency of said service and for reasons given in 
writing, and the person whose removal is sought shall have 
notice of the same and of any charges preferred against him, 
and be furnished with a copy thereof, and also be allowed a 
reasonable time for personally answering the same in writing; 
and affidavits in support thereof; but no examination of wit- 
nesses nor any trial or hearing shall be required except in the 
discretion of the officer making the removal; and copies of 
charges, notice of hearing, answer, reasons for removal, and 
of the order of removal shall be made a part of the records of 
the proper department or office, as shall also the reasons for 
reduction in rank or compensation; and copies of the same 
shall be furnished to the person affected upon request, and the 
Civil Service Commission also shall, upon request, be furnished 
copies of the same : . . . 

It will be noted that this provision applies to persons in 
"the classified service," whereas the rules which preceded this 
statute referred only to persons in "the competitive classified 
service." It was shortly held, however, by the Attorney Gen- 
eral that the statute did not embrace any wider class than did 
the former rules, that "the term 'classified civil service,' in sec- 
tion 6 of the act of August 24, 1912, was used in the more pop- 
ular sense of the competitive service; and, therefore, should not 
be held to include excepted positions, unless such positions have 
been filled as competitive positions are filled, in which event, 
under Rule II, paragraph 3, of the Civil Service Rules, the 
person appointed is entitled to all the rights of a competi- 
tive employee. (30 Opinions Attorney General, 181.)" 

The wording of this statute merits close attention, especially 
in view of the erroneous notion not infrequently encountered 
that the law requires a formal trial, involving a more or less 
judicial procedure. It calls for no taking of testimony nor 
does it set up any requirement as to the sufficiency of the 

^2>7 Stat. 555. 



498 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

evidence upon which removal is made. It affords the employee 
no protection against removal other than the moral security 
which he derives from the fact that an administrative officer 
will hesitate before committing to the departmental records 
an unfounded charge against an employee,^ It may be said 
with entire accuracy, therefore, that the law in its present 
state offers no obstacle to the removal of an employee for in- 
efficiency and that responsibility for failure to make such 
removal or reduction, where there has been such failure, rests 
wholly upon the administrative officer. 

In those branches of the unclassified service, other than 
laborers, to which formal systems of selection have been ex- 
tended there are found at present no restrictions upon removal. 
Since appointment in all these cases is in the hands of the 
President and removal is, therefore, likewise in his hands, none 
of the restrictions, whether of the civil service act or of the 
rules prohibiting removal for political or religious reasons, 
apply. ^ The protection against removal in these services, there- 
fore, is wholly moral and traditional. Up to the present time 
there has been no evidence that this protection is insufficient 
and it would seem superfluous to attempt to suggest any change 
on this point. It is worth noting that the committee on the 
foreign service of the National Civil Service Reform League 
made no suggestion on this head in its recent report. 

The situation in the presidential postmasterships varies 
from that in the foreign service and in the Public Health 

* The popular misconception as to the effect of this statute sometimes 
is so extreme that it is thought that the employee has the right to invoke 
a judicial review of the action of the administrative officer in removing 
him. There is absolutely no warrant for this belief. Should the ad- 
ministrative officer choose to make a wholly unfounded charge against 
an employee and remove him on the basis of such charge, even if the 
employee's reply to such charge, filed before removal, were ever so con- 
clusive, there is no way whatever in which the action of the officer may 
be submitted to a judicial review (or even to the review of any superior 
administrative authority— unless provision for such review is made by 
the department itself). 

* It will be recalled that the officers enumerated in the civil service 
act who are prohibited from promoting, reducing, or dismissing employees 
because of giving or refusing political contributions, does not include the 
President, and as already suggested, it is questionable whether it would be 
constitutional for Congress to impose such a restriction upon the President. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 499 

Service in that there is a statutory term of four years at the 
end of which the department (through recommendation to the 
President) may remove, in effect, by faihng to reappoint. The 
aboHtion of the four-year term has been urged already. 

With respect to unskilled laborers, the moral mandate of 
the civil service law and rules applies, but the statute of 1912 
does not. Procedure designed to safeguard against abuse of 
the removal power is confined to that provided by the regula- 
tions for federal offices outside of Washington. The regu- 
lation on this point is as follows : 

Sec. I. No laborer shall be removed except for such cause as, 
in the judgment of the head of the office, will pro- 
mote the efficiency of the service, and no trial or hear- 
ing shall be required except at the discretion of the 
officer making the removal. 

Sec. 2. The reasons for any removal shall be made of record 
in the office in which the person is serving, and shall 
be open to the inspection of the board and the com- 
mission. 

It will be observed that this provision does not, like the 
provision in the classified service, require notice to the employee 
or an opportunity for making answer, but merely requires that 
the reasons for removal shall be made of record. 

Whether or not the regulations just quoted furnish as full 
a measure of protection against the improper removal of la- 
borers as might be desirable, there seems no reason why they 
should not be applied to the entire labor service. Certainly 
there is no reason for exempting Washington, where laborers 
are employed under competitive methods, from the meager 
requirement that the reasons for removal shall be made of 
record, and it is difficult to see why even those cities to which 
the regulations for competitive selection have not yet been 
applied should be excepted from this requirement. 

In considering whether in this state of law, an adequate 
degree of protection is afforded to the employee against re- 
moval for political or personal reasons, it would be futile; 
to attempt to formulate a theoretical standard for judgment. 



500 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Under ideal conditions there would be no temptation or in- 
clination on the part of the administrative officer to abuse his 
power. What is required is a shaping of the procedure that 
will guard effectively against the actual danger of unjust re- 
moval as it is now found in the federal service. Viewed 
from the standpoint of the service as a whole, embracing in 
that term the individual employees, it is far better that the 
power of removal and reduction be vigorously exercised, even 
if occasionally an employee is dismissed or reduced in a doubt- 
ful case. If the procedure prevents flagrant abuse of the 
power of removal and reduction, it is sufficient. 

Where the chief administrative officers are political, and 
where political, and particularly Congressional, intervention is 
permitted, it is impossible to safeguard the removal procedure 
absolutely against political removals without unduly restricting 
the administrative officer. When the administrative officers 
are selected on a merit basis, political intervention effectively 
checked, and political activity by employees prohibited, there 
will be for practical purposes no danger of political removals 
and reductions to guard against. In point of fact, the danger 
of political removals has been very largely eliminated already 
in the federal service. In part this is due to legal, in part 
to purely moral or traditional, factors. 

In the competitive service, moreover, ample protection 
against purely political removal lies in the fact that the superior 
has little or no choice in the selection of the successor of the 
dismissed employee. The same is true, though perhaps less 
unqualifiedly, in the case of laborers. It is still more true in 
the case of presidential postmasters, because selection, under 
the present order, is ordinarily restricted to the highest eligible.^ 
In the case of the foreign service and of the Public Health 
Service this factor is not present, but the tradition of perma- 
nence and non-partisanship is already so highly developed in 
those services that the removal of one in the service merely 
to make a vacancy is hardly within the bounds of possibility. 

* President Harding's new Order of May lo, 1921, permits the Post- 
master General to select from the three highest. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 501 

In short, it may be said that, while political removals may 
still occur in rare instances, the danger of such removal is 
too slight to call for any severe additional restriction upon 
the removal power of administrative ofHcers, a power which, 
as already seen, has been in the virtual absence of restriction, 
all too feebly and infrequently exercised. 

With respect to the need for protection against removal 
merely for reasons of personal dislike, the question is perhaps 
a little more debatable. Doubtless an instance in which a 
thoroughly competent employee would be removed for such 
a cause is virtually unknown; but there are always a certain 
number of border-line cases in which the justice of removal 
for inefficiency is an open question, and here the personal 
likes and dislikes of the administrative officer may find some 
field for play. Nevertheless, even here the danger appears so 
slight that it would seem better to continue to incur it rather 
than to furnish administrative officers with any material addi- 
tional excuses for neglecting to make necessary removals or 
reductions. 

In the postal service there has been brought into promi- 
nence a third improper cause for removal against which pro- 
tection must be provided. This is removal for activity in 
employees' organizations. There is no rule in the postal 
service prohibiting this kind of activity, and indeed the statutes 
expressly recognize the right of postal employees to member- 
ship, and therefore, by implication, the right to hold office in 
and act as representative of, such organizations. Neverthe- 
less, there has been a number of dismissals in the postal 
service of the officers of organizations of postal employees, and 
of their spokesmen before Congressional committees, oh 
charges generally believed by the members of the organiza- 
tions in question to have been trumped up. 
Possible Machinery for Controlling Exercise of Power of 
Dismissal. — The practical devices which may be proposed 
for further restricting the power of removal vested in the 
heads of departments are not many. The most extreme that 
could be proposed would be that calling for a judicial review 



502 THE^FEDERAL SERVICE 

of the facts from which any dismissal was based, such re- 
view to be obtained by the dismissed employee by the writ 
of certiorari. 

Such a provision is now actually found in a few municipal 
jurisdictions with respect to their police and fire services, where 
it has been thought desirable to protect the honest policeman 
or fireman against the malevolence of grafting superiors. 
There is no branch in the federal service where such a re- 
striction would be appropriate, and no suggestion that it should 
be applied has come to notice. 

A method much less extreme than this, but still quite se- 
vere, would be a provision under which a removal ordered by 
the head of a department would be reviewable by a central 
bureau such as the Civil Service Commission. This proposal 
was actually made by the Reclassification Commission in its 
recent report. It is not clear whether the Commission intended 
that the review should be made by the central authority only 
upon the appeal of the employee dismissed or whether it in- 
tended that the consent of the Civil Service Commission or 
other central authority should be necessary in every case 
to make a removal effective.-^ The latter provision would be 
particularly drastic, and it is hardly believed that even the for- 
mer is justified by the conditions now existing in the 
service. The furthest that such provision should go is the 
requirement that administrative officers file with the Civil 
Service Commission a statement of the reasons why employees 
are dismissed. 

In some civil service jurisdictions the removal power has 
been removed entirely from the hands of the administrative 

* At one point the Commission recommends "that employees who fail 
to attain a current standard of efficiency be removed from the service 
after suitable opportunity for appeal to the Commission" (Report, Part I, 
p. 125), so also "Dismissal should also be resorted to in cases of dishon- 
esty, immorality, or other serious offense in accordance with the present 
provisions of law, but with the right of appeal on the part of the em- 
ployee to the Civil Service Commission" (Report, Part I, p. 128). The pro- 
posed law submitted by the Commission for enactment reads, however, 
that "no employee shall be dismissed except m accordance with the act 
approved August 24, 1912, and unless such dismissal is approved by the 
Commission." (Report, Part I, p. 138.) 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 503 

officers and vested in special trial boards, usually composed of 
the members of the Civil Service Commission and, in some 
cases, with employee representation. Under this procedure the 
administrative officer has no power other than to suspend the 
employee and file charges against him with the trial board, 
which then becomes the sole judge of the penalty to be in- 
flicted, whether removal or a less penalty. The principal ex- 
ample of this type of provision in an important jurisdiction 
is that of Chicago. Opinions have differed very widely as 
to the wisdom of this provision, both in theory and as it has 
worked out actually in Chicago and elsewhere. It has been 
contended by the advocates of the system that it results in 
prompter and more general removal of the inefficient because 
it relieves the administrative officer of the burden of ordering 
such removals, putting him merely in the position of a com- 
plainant, while the onus of the final decision rests upon the 
trial board; and that this board is able to exercise its power 
fearlessly because it need not dread incurring the disfavor 
of the employees, since it does not require their future 
cooperation, as does the administrative officer, in order to suc- 
ceed in its work. On the other hand, the opponents of the 
system condemn it as relieving the administrative officer of a 
responsibility which should squarely be his, of depriving the 
energetic and forceful administrator of the power of removal 
which he should have if he is to retain control of his depart- 
ment, and of furnishing the incompetent employee an elaborate 
protection against removal to which he is not entitled and which, 
on the contrary, redounds to the disadvantage of the service. 
The view upon the point last mentioned is based upon the 
belief, which it can hardly be doubted is supported by experi- 
ence, that when a body is created, as in this case, nominally 
to deal out even handed justice but actually to protect the in- 
terests of the employee, almost invariably it tends to develop 
a bias in favor of the employee, so that the administrative 
officer who prefers charges against the employee is likely, when 
he appears before the board, to find himself actually in the 
position of a defendant, though nominally complainant. 



504 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

The substance of the matter seems to be that the formal 
trial board is justified only when there exists a considerable 
degree of danger of political removals. As already indicated, 
it is not believed that such a situation now obtains in the 
federal service. Under these conditions the trial board sys- 
tem is not likely to have any such value as will compensate 
for the division of administrative responsibility which it en- 
tails and the weakening of the forces, already far too weak, 
which make for the prompt and determined removal of the in- 
efficient. Furthermore, the object aimed at may be attained 
in a much more satisfactory manner by the organization in 
the several departments and bureaus of advisory boards made 
up of supervisory officers and employee representatives, 
to whom all but the most flagrant cases of inefficiency 
or misconduct should be referred for examination and recom- 
mendation before action by the head of the department 
or other officer vested with the power of removal. These 
boards should not act in a judicial capacity in the sense that 
the complaining officer would be required to appear before 
them to testify, for this would necessarily tend to weaken 
the desire of officers to act, even in cases clearly calling for 
action. The tribunal should sit rather in the capacity of an 
advisory and examining body, having before it the state- 
ment of the complaining officer, which would be not so much 
in the nature of a complaint as of a request for investigation. 
The body could then hear the employee and could make other 
informal investigation reaching a conclusion compounded of 
due regard for the interests of the service and the interests 
of the employee. The recommendation of such a body should 
have a purely advisory status, though it might be provided 
that the action of the board should be made a part of the public 
records of the department, and that a copy of the prcoeedings 
should be forwarded to the Civil Service Commission. 

A procedure such as this, is especially desirable in the 
larger services in which the contact between the individual and 
the superior officer who exercises the power of removal or 
of recommendation for removal is so slight that it does not fur- 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 505 

nish in or of itself any safeguard against arbitrary removal. 
The postal service is an outstanding example of such a service ; 
and the absence of any formalized procedure for the exercising 
of the power of removal in this service has long been a source 
of complaint among its members. In the programs of the sev- 
eral postal employees' organizations are found demands for 
the creation in the several branches of the service of "Courts 
of Appeal." It is not clear whether these demands con- 
template a central tribunal, outside the department, or depart- 
mental tribunals along the lines here urged. 

It is by no means essential, either in theory or in prac- 
tice, that, in the establishment of service tribunals of this kind, 
the subordinate employee should be given representation, and 
there are practical difficulties in the way of giving them such 
representation. Nevertheless it is believed that if the func- 
tions of these tribunals are confined within the limits above 
suggested, no impairment of the responsibility of the admin- 
istration can result from such representation while, on the 
other hand, its effect upon the morale of the subordinate per- 
sonnel is likely to be very beneficial. 

It is unfortunate that figures showing the number of dis- 
missals or reductions for inefficiency or misconduct are not 
available. The departments are not required to report such 
action to the Commission or to any central agency and they 
do not publish such data in their own reports. It would 
seem desirable that the civil service rules, which now merely 
follow the statute in providing that the Civil Service Com- 
mission, upon request, shall be furnished copies of the reasons 
for removal, should require that notice be sent to it of every 
removal and also every reduction, together wj^h a copy of 
the reasons therefor. Upon the basis of such reports the Com- 
mission might then make a study of the exercise of the removal 
power under present statutory provisions with a view to recom- 
mendation for changes, should any be called for. 

In 1890 Congress imposed upon the heads of the several 
executive departments the duty "to report to Congress each 
year in the annual estimates the number of employees in each 



5o6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

bureau and ofiflce, and the salaries of each, who are below a 
fair standard of efficiency." ^ This statute, it will be observed, 
does not require that those below a fair standard of efficiency 
shall be removed from the service, but it is doubtless equivalent 
to a moral mandate.^ Furthermore, it makes no distinction 
between employees whose inefficiency is due to age or physical 
infirmity and those inefficient for other reasons. 

In the reports submitted pursuant to the statute just re- 
ferred to for the year ended June 30, 1919,^ the Secretary of 
State categorically states "that there are no employees in the 
Department of State below a fair average of efficiency," and 
the Chairmen of the Federal Trade Commission and of the 
Federal Board for Vocational Education, the only independent 
establishment which filed reports pursuant to the statute that 
year, are equally positive. The Secretary of the Treasury 
somewhat more modestly submits a statement from the chief 
clerk of the Department to the effect that the following offices,, 
and the list embraces all the offices of the Department, "report 
that there are no employees therein who are below a fair 
standard of efficiency." Similarly, the Secretary of the Navy 
reports that "my information is that there are no employees 
in this Department below a fair standard of efficiency," and 
the Postmaster General states that "based on efficiency ratings, 
there are no employees of this Department who are below a 
fair standard within the meaning of the act." The Attorney 
General states that "it is reported that there are no employees 
in this Department, so far as officially informed, who are 
below a fair standard of efficiency." Each of the remaining 
executive departments reports several employees as being be- 
low a fair st^dard of efficiency. The War Department stated 

^Act of July II, 1890, Section 2, 26 Stat. 228. 

^ In 1912, in providing for the establishment of a system of efficiency 
records, to which more extended reference has been made in connection 
with promotion methods, Congress provided that "such system . . . shall 
also provtde a rating below which no employee may fall without being 
demoted ; it shall further provide for a rating below which no employee 
may fall without being dismissed for inefficiency (Act of August 23, 
1912. 37 Stat. 413). _ 

' Found in Estimates of Appropriations Required for the Service of 
the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1921, pp. 1040 ff. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 507 

that in each of the cases reported by it "a reduction in grade 
is contemplated." None of the other departments indicated 
what action it proposed to be taken in the cases reported by 
them. It is evident that the departments have not taken this 
requirement seriously, and that no good is accomplished by it. 

The questions involved in the formulation of a satisfactory 
procedure for the reduction to a lower position of an employee 
who has proved himself incompetent are not different in any 
essential respect from those involved in the problem of dis- 
missal. The difference is one of degree, reduction being a 
so much less severe punishment than dismissal that there is 
correspondingly less need or justification for restricting the 
discretion of the administrative officer. 

Power to Suspend as a Means of Promoting Individual 
Efficiency. — The power of suspension of an employee 
pending action on the question of his removal or reduction is 
one which is indispensable to effective administration. The 
only safeguard which should be imposed on the exercise of 
this power is a provision limiting the period of suspension so 
as to compel a decision to be made promptly. Suspension may 
be employed also, however, as a method of punishment in 
and of itself when there is no intention to inflict removal or 
reduction. In the latter case, of course, there should also be 
,a limitation on the length of time for which suspension may 
be ordered, since suspension for too long a period may be 
tantamount to a removal, but the period may be measurably 
longer than in the first case without being excessive. 

The civil service rules provide that "a person may be 
suspended for a period not to exceed ninety (90) days . . . 
the period of suspension may be extended beyond ninety 
(90) days with the prior consent of the Commission." ^ These 
time limitations apply regardless of the purpose of the sus- 
pension. It is believed that 90 days is an excessive period of 
suspension if the suspension contemplates the possible removal 
or dismissal of the employee. In such cases a suspension of 
two or three weeks at most should be adequate. 

'Rule XII, Section 3. 



5o8 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

On the procedural side the rule merely provides that the 
reasons for the suspension "shall, at the time of the suspen- 
sion, be filed in the records of the proper department or ofhce 
and copies shall be furnished to the Commission upon re- 
quest." 

Other Factors for Promoting Individual Efficiency. — In 
shaping policies or procedures those entrusted with the ad- 
ministration of the personnel system must ever keep in mind 
the effect which such policies and procedures will have upon 
the morale and upon the working efficiency of the rank and 
file of the personnel, and in every case where a policy or 
procedure has been discussed in these pages, such considera- 
tions necessarily have been present. It is worth while, however, 
to review strictly from the standpoint of the employee these 
points in order to get in one place, and in a connected way, a 
picture of the service from the employee's standpoint, its 
attractions and its drawbacks. 

General Attractiveness of the Public Service. — In apprais- 
ing the net attractiveness of the federal service, it is desirable 
to recognize at the outset that, in almost all the administrative 
and technical employments of the government, there are to be 
found individuals to whom employment by the government is 
in and of itself more satisfying than private employment can 
be. This is due largely to a sort of intellectual satisfaction 
derived from contact with, and participation in, the affairs of 
an organization of such vast power and extent as the gov- 
ernment. Whatever the conscious or subconscious psycho- 
logical elements present, this preference does exist and is to 
be reckoned with as no insignificant factor in the recruitment 
and maintenance in the service of a satisfactory class of per- 
sonnel. It is one, consequently, that should be fostered in 
every way possible. 

One of the greatest obstacles in the way of this is the gen- 
erally low esteem in which the government service is held. 
Whatever adjustments may be made in the way of compensa- 
tion, opportunity for advancement, and the like, the federal 
service will still suffer unless there can be developed upon the 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 509 

part of the public as a whole a sincere feeling of regard for 
the service. The development of a public regard for the abil- 
ity and idealism of the intermediate and subordinate admin- 
istrators in the federal service, similar to the regard that is 
now generally had for military and naval officers, perhaps 
would contribute as much as any other single development to 
elevating in a very short space of time the type of indi- 
vidual recruited and retained in all grades of the federal 
service. 

In the creation of the tradition of prestige for the service, 
the prevailing scale of compensation perhaps plays a less im- 
portant part than does the current estimate of the efficiency 
with which the work of the service is carried out and of the 
ability which is required to carry it on. Generally speaking, 
the public is woefully ignorant of the magnitude and diffi- 
culties of the problems of public administration. In common 
opinion, the operations of the federal agencies are simple and 
routine in character, involving in large measure but the wind- 
ing, unwinding, and rewinding of quantities of red tape. Of 
the technical difficulties, the organization problems, the vexed 
determinations of policy which frequently confront even the 
subordinate federal officer, even the enlightened public is 
largely oblivious. 

Vital as is the need of developing the reputation of the 
service for efficiency of management, the development merely 
of a reputation for efficiency is not sufficient. In every field 
of endeavor there are to be found men to whom the opinion 
of the community is of less vital consequence than is the sat- 
isfaction of their own instincts of workmanship. By such 
spirits the chief reward for labor and effort is found in the 
consciousness of a task expertly achieved, of time and material 
used to the utmost, of waste eliminated. To men of this type 
the government service, other things being equal, should make 
a strong appeal because the large proportion of effort which, 
in every private industry, is devoted to the furthering of purely 
competitive ends without in any manner contributing to actual 
production, is absent in governmental operations. Efficiency 



510 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of operation is thus one of the chief elements in the attractive- 
ness or lack of attractiveness of the federal service. 

Security. — Another prime factor of attractiveness is that 
of security of tenure so long as efficient service is rendered. 
Security of employment presents two distinct phases — secur- 
ity against removal for improper reasons, and security against 
dismissal made necessary by changes in conditions rendering 
the particular service no longer necessary. In both these re- 
spects the federal service may be said to be superior to private 
employment from the employees' standpoint. The position 
has been taken, indeed, in a former chapter that the protection 
which obtains against improper removal is not quite adequate. 
But the fact remains that removal merely because of personal 
dislike or incompatibility, by no means uncommon in private 
employment, is hardly known in the federal service. Removal 
for wh5t may be called political reasons also exists even in 
private business, especially in the larger organizations. 

On the score of security against business vicissitudes the 
federal service obviously offers one of its chief attractions as 
against private employment. In most branches of the service 
this security is virtually complete. It is not entirely so, how- 
ever. It is inevitable that in so large and varied an organ- 
ization as the federal service certain classes of work should 
become unnecessary from time to time, either being abandoned' 
altogether or superseded by improved methods. The best the 
administration can hope to do in cases of this kind is to make 
some other provision for the employees affected. In this re- 
spect, the federal service, until recently, was distinctly behind 
the best private practice; but the beginning made in the es- 
tablishment of reemployment registers in 19 19 doubtless will 
soon result in the development of adequate procedures under 
this head. 

The Merit Basis. — Still more fundamental from the stand- 
point of its attractiveness to the employee is the recognition of 
merit as the sole basis for action in all matters of personnel 
administration. When the need and importance of the merit 
system are under discussion it is usually recruitment that is 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 511 

particularly in mind. In point of fact, however, from the 
standpoint of the employee, whether actual or prospective, the 
extent to which the merit system is departed from in initial 
recruitment is of secondary importance. What is important 
to him is that once in the service he shall find that the rewards 
of promotion, salary increase, favorable reassignment, and the 
like, and the punishment of removal, suspension, demotion, 
and the like, shall be awarded without reference to personal 
or political considerations, and wholly upon the basis of dem- 
onstrated merit. Nor is it sufficient that this basis shall be 
adopted merely in principle. The machinery must be so ar- 
ranged and operated that all employees will be convinced that 
it is applied in practice. 

The review of existing conditions in the federal service 
made in the preceding chapters has disclosed that neither of 
these conditions generally obtains. The revision of the pres- 
ent procedure for determining promotion, salary increase, re- 
assignment, demotion, removal, and the like, along the lines 
suggested in the preceding chapters, and with special emphasis 
on those phases of such procedures as will most effectively 
bring assurance and conviction to the employees is funda- 
mental, therefore, to any program for the improvement of 
the federal service. 

Opportunity for Advancement. — The factors which deter- 
mine the degree and kind of opportunity for advancement in 
any personnel system fall into two distinct classes. On the 
one hand are those factors which make for frequent vacancies 
above the entrance grade; on the other, those factors which 
determine the extent to which such vacancies, as they occur, 
are filled by selection from within the service, and the area 
from which such selection is usually made. 

The factors affecting the frequency with which vacancies 
occur in the service above the entrance grade, are chiefly three 
in number. Perhaps most important is the procedure, if any, 
in force for retiring superannuated personnel. If such retire- 
ment is prompt and universal, the opportunities of the younger 
personnel are obviously enlarged. The effect which the ab- 



512 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

sence of a retirement system has in reducing the opportunities 
for advancement of the younger personnel is not commonly 
appreciated. In discussions of the problem of the superan- 
nuated employee, that familiar character is usually thought of 
as occupying a position of negligible importance; and the 
argument runs that his service is so inconsiderable that it would 
be cheaper to retire him at half pay than to retain him at full 
pay. In point of fact, where there is no retirement system, 
the superannuated employee is found, of course, in positions 
of all degrees of importance, from lowest to highest, and is 
especially likely to be found in the supervisory positions of 
intermediate responsibility; and even where his duties have 
greatly declined in importance, he still is likely to be in receipt 
of the salary attached to his former, more important, duties. 
The net result is that vacancies rarely occur in the higher or 
better paid places, for among this class of elderly employees of 
long service it is especially true that ''few die and none re- 
sign," Hence it is that a generous retirement system, per- 
mitting the regular withdrawal from the service of those who 
have outlived their highest usefulness, greatly increases the 
mobility of the service and the opportunity of those in the 
ranks for advancement. 

The enactment of the retirement act of 1920, though far 
from a satisfactory measure, thus marks an important advance 
in rendering the federal service more attractive not merely 
to the routineer to whom the assurance of a superannuation 
provision for his benefit is of high importance in and of itself, 
but to the young, ambitious, and capable employee to whom 
the retirement provision itself is a matter of indifference, but 
whose opportunities for advancement during his working life 
are materially increased by it. 

Perhaps next in importance to the retirement system in 
effecting the frequency with which vacancies occur is the extent 
to which it is possible for employees so desiring to leave the 
federal service to enter the business or professional world. 
The greater the opportunity, and the more frequently it is 
availed of, the greater the number of vacancies within the 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 513 

service. The present situation under this head varies widely 
from service to service and from one occupation or calling to 
another. In some services, as for example in the Patent Of- 
fice and in some of the technical services, capable employees 
so desiring find no difficulty in capitalizing their government 
experience in private employment. Indeed, in some cases, they 
find this experience a far greater asset than the experience 
which could have been acquired over a similar period in pri- 
vate employment. In other branches of work quite the reverse 
condition is found. In still other branches (and the bulk of 
manual and mechanical employments doubtlessly fall in this 
class) experience in the federal service possesses neither a 
greater nor less market value than similar experience in pri- 
vate employ. 

At the present time experience in the government service in 
a capacity akin to that known in private employment as "of- 
fice manager" has virtually no market value in the business 
world. Yet the work involved — the supervision of a clerical 
force engaged in correspondence, filing, bookkeeping, mailing, 
and the like — is essentially the same in many government of- 
fices as in commercial offices. The difficulty is that there has 
not been developed by those branches of the service engaged 
in office work a reputation for efficiency. In point of fact 
many government offices are perhaps more efficiently conducted 
than many commercial offices. But just as the office manage- 
ment of a large corporation is credited with high efficiency in 
the absence of any knowledge of the actual facts, so the gov- 
ernment office now bears the stigma of inefficiency. What is 
chiefly needed, therefore, to give experience in the federal 
service a market value is the development of a reputation for 
efficiency. 

This is not to say that it is to be accepted as the policy of 
the federal service that it should be in any degree less attrac- 
tive to the capable employee than the conditions obtaining in 
private employment. On the contrary, it goes without say- 
ing that every effort should be made by the federal personnel 
administration to establish such conditions that the capable 



514 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

employee will ordinarily find it entirely satisfactory to remain 
in the service. But no matter how high a standard may be 
reached in the development of the federal service, or of any 
service, there must always be a not inconsiderable proportion 
of cases in which a particular individual finds the prospect be- 
fore him in the service much less to his liking than he does the 
prospect of transferring to some other organization. It is 
for this percentage of cases that the service should make pro- 
vision, along the lines herein suggested. 

There are some, indeed, who would have the service take 
the opposite view. The resignation from the federal service 
of a capable employee to enter private employment is regarded 
by them as a loss to the service which should be prevented in 
every way possible. Such a view, however, fails to take into 
account the larger benefits which flow from the increased at- 
tractiveness of the service precisely by reason of the oppor- 
tunity which exists for shifting to private employment and by 
reason also of the increased opportunity for advancement 
within the service which thus results. There is, of course, a 
point beyond which the departure of men to private service 
would indicate an unhealthy condition, and that that point has 
long been reached in certain^ of the federal services has already 
been pointed out. But up to that point the flow of men to 
private service, and so far as consistent with the other re- 
quirements of sound personnel administration, the counter- 
flow of men from private employment to the federal service, 
may be regarded as a hopeful sign of fluidity and vigor.^ 

The final factor which determines the frequency with which 

* While in the above discussion the increase in the market value of 
experience in the federal service has been regarded as merely one ele- 
ment affecting the frequency with which vacancies occur in the service, 
thus promoting the opportunity for advancement in the service, it need 
hardly be said that an increase in the value of the employee's services in 
the employment market is in and of itself something which makes the 
service attractive to the employee. Indeed in some branches of the serv- 
ice, of which the Patent Office is the most conspicuous example, the 
high rate at which experience in the service can be capitalized in priv_ate 
employment is perhaps the chief and for many the sole attraction of the 
service. Needless to say, however, where such a condition results it is 
hardly a desirable one from the standpoint of the service, however at- 
tractive it may be from the standpoint of the employee who is thus able 
to capitalize his experience in the service. 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 515 

vacancies occur in a service usually is the rate of expansion 
in the service itself. This is not, however, like the other fac- 
tors mentioned, a matter of policy to be determined in ad- 
vance. While exceptions, of course, occur now and then, the 
general statement is warranted that so far as affected by this 
factor the opportunity for advancement in the federal service 
is considerably more limited than in private employment. 
Only in rare and exceptional cases do branches of the federal 
service expand with anything like the rapidity that charac- 
terizes vigorous business enterprises. The factor of internal 
expansion is indeed the one on which industrial concerns, 
for the most part, rely chiefly to create the vacancies neces- 
sary for providing sufficient opportunity for advancement for 
the subordinate personnel. The creation of new services, 
however, does occur from time to time and presents an unusual 
opportunity to award advancement to faithful employees who 
have not found such opportunity within the branches of the 
organization where they may be employed. It might be 
thought, therefore, that when opportunities of this kind oc- 
curred they would be exploited to the utmost. It is notorious, 
however, that partly owing to the failure to make any positive 
provision either by Congress, the President, or the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission, and partly owing to the prohibitory provi- 
sions enacted by Congress and confirmed by the rules of the 
Civil Service Commission, the opportunity presented by the 
creation of new services seldom has been availed of to any- 
thing like the full extent. In view of the relative unimpor- 
tance of the factor of internal expansion in the federal serv- 
ice, it is all the more important that thorough-going measures 
be taken, by way of the retirement system and of enhancing 
the marketability of experience in the federal service in the 
private employment market, to increase as much as possible 
the rate of frequency of occurrence of vacancies and to fill the 
vacancies that do occur as far as possible from within the 
service. 

The desirability of restricting selection for such vacancies 
as occur above the entrance grade to those already in the serv- 



5i6 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ice as far as practicable, and indeed of providing, even at some 
expense and trouble, means whereby those already in the serv- 
ice who would not otherwise be eligible for certain lines of 
promotion may qualify themselves for such promotion, has 
been fully considered already. The placing of all the political 
administrative posts upon a merit basis, the elimination under 
all ordinary conditions of recruitment from without for any 
position which can with substantially equally satisfactory re- 
sults be filled from within, and the provision, within reason- 
able limits, of means whereby those within the service may 
equip themselves for advanced responsibility, comprise the 
measures which should be taken in the federal service to in- 
crease the opportunity of those within the service to attain 
promotion to such vacancies as occur. 

But for maximum attractiveness of the service it is not suf- 
ficient merely that such vacancies as occur within a service are 
filled from within : it is equally essential that they be filled by 
the selection of the most capable employee wherever avail- 
able; and this means, both that the method of selection must 
be correct, and that the area of selection shall be sufficiently 
extensive. In a preceding chapter the considerations which 
should govern in determining the proper area from which se- 
lection for any given vacancy is to be made were considered, 
and need not be reviewed here. What is essential to note here 
is that it is in this particular respect — that of failing adequately 
to extend the area of selection from within, leaving some of 
the ablest employees who have had the misfortune to become 
located in certain branches of the service with far fewer op- 
portunities for promotion than their less able fellows in other 
branches — that the federal service has fallen furthest short of 
realizing its full possibilities in the field of enlarging the op- 
portunity for advancement.^ 

* One specific point at which the area of selection from \yithi_n is 
now commonly improperly defined in the federal service, resulting in a 
severe curtailment of the opportunity for advancement of the more 
capable employees, deserves special mention. As has been pointed pub- 
already, in not a few of the field services, each local establishment is 
an independent unit, at least so far as the more important officers is con- 
cerned, a, transfer from pne station to another occurring only in the 



THE MAINTENANCE OF EFFICIENCY 517 

Summarizing then the steps which should be taken to en- 
large the opportunities for advancement offered by the fed- 
eral service generally, they are: 

1. The establishment of a retirement system insuring the 
prompt retirement of superannuated employees. 

2. The development, for the service generally and particu- 
larly for those branches in which work is analogous to that 
of private employment, of a reputation for efficiency which 
would facilitate the passage of personnel to such employment. 

3. The provision of facilities for instruction of the subor- 
dinate personnel in subjects tending to qualify them for ad- 
vancement to specific positions not in the natural line of pro- 
motion. 

4. The placing of all administrative posts, that is, all posts 
except that of head of department, upon a merit basis. 

5. The express recognition of the principle that positions 
are to be filled by promotion rather than by selection from 
outside, except where compelling reasons exist to the contrary. 

6. The encouragement, instead of the obstruction, of free 
transfer, within clearly defined technical group lines, from 
service to service and from departrnent to department. 

7. Particularly, the staffing of new services so far as pos- 
sible by the transfer of personnel from the old services. 

8. The definite organization of all field services, and par- 
ticularly the postal and customs services, on a national basis, 
so as to facilitate the transfer of the higher officers of those 
services from station to station. 

rarest instances. The obvious result is that a capable employee in one 
of the smaller of these establishments has far fewer opportunities for 
advancement than a less capable employee in one of the larger establish- 
ments. There is everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by the 
organization of all these services upon a national basis which will trans- 
fer the higher officers of the service from station to station. 



CHAPTER XIV 

WORKING CONDITIONS 

The substantive policies which are pursued with respect 
to matters affecting individual employees — compensation, re- 
cruitment, promotion, reassignment, removal, retirement, and 
the like — and the fairness and effectiveness with which those 
policies are applied, constitute the major elements of the work- 
ing environment. In addition to these, there are, however, 
certain general factors having to do with the conditions under 
which employees give their services that are of no little in- 
fluence in determining the morale and thus the efficiency of a 
personnel system. 

Hours of Labor. — The conditions with respect to the 
hours of labor in the departments at Washington are stated 
thus by the Reclassification Commission : ^ 

Requirements as to hours of work in the Washington serv- 
ice are more uniform than most other conditions of employ- 
ment, and do not differ materially from those generally in 
effect elsewhere. Seven hours constitute a normal day's work 
for the clerical and professional group of employees, and eight 
hours for the manual, making aggregates of 42 and 48 hours 
per week. From June 15 to September 15, four hours con- 
stitute a day's work on Saturday, thus reducing the aggregate 
to 39 and 44 hours per week during that period. Hours for 
office workers generally in effect outside of the government 
service are 7 or 7^ hours for 5 days and 4 or 43^ on Sat- 
urdays in the office building districts of the larger cities such 
as Boston, New York, and Chicago. In mercantile establish- 
ments and factories, hours for office workers are more usually 
7^ or 8 per day, often with no Saturday half-holiday. The 
eight-hour day is now normal for manual workers outside as 
well as inside of the government service. 

^ Report of Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 89. 

518 



WORKING CONDITIONS 519 

Substantially the same conditions exist throughout the field 
service. 

During the war the attempt was made to increase the hours 
of all government employees to eight, and a bill carrying a 
provision for this purpose was actually passed by Congress, 
despite the opposition of the employees, strongly enforced by 
organized labor. The bill was vetoed by the President on the 
ground that the department heads already had the power to 
require eight hours' service, an objection hardly relevant inas- 
much as the object of the law was to prevent the depart- 
ment heads from requiring or permitting less than eight hours' 
service.^ 

Overtime Work. — Overtime work, on the whole, is un- 
common in the federal service. In the departments at Wash- 
ington, unusual congestion of business, or the necessity for 
completing a report or other document by a certain date, occa- 
sionally results in overtime work. In the field establishments 
similar occasions arise, and in some services, as in the customs 
inspection service, in the inspection of passenger baggage, the 
nature of the work sometimes calls for large amounts of over- 
time. In the postal service also, there is necessarily a pro- 
portion of overtime work. In the Government Printing Of- 
fice, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and other indus- 
trial establishments of the government, overtime work is not 
uncommon. 

It is elementary that overtime work should be kept within 
the narrowest limits possible — that a sufficient force should 
be provided, and the work so organized and directed, that no 
overtime work will be necessary normally. The regulations 
governing overtime work should be so framed as to deter the 
management from relying upon overtime work except under 
the most urgent circumstances. The most effective way to 
accomplish this is to require the payment of employees for 
overtime work, and payment moreover at an increased rate. 

^ There was already on the statute books a law (Act of March 15, 
1898, 30 Stat. 316) requiring the heads of departments to exact "not 
less than seven hours of labor each day, except Sundays and days de- 
clared public holidays by law or executive order." 



520 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

A general provision of law ^ now prohibits such payment 
unless expressly authorized by law; and such authorization 
has been made only in the case of per hour and per diem em- 
ployees and piece-rate workers in the Bureau of Engraving 
and Printing and the Government Printing Office, where 50 per 
cent and 20 per cent additional compensation, respectively, are 
allowed for overtime, and, in the case of postal employees, 
where overtime work is compensated for in proportion to the 
salaries as fixed by law. 

It is hardly open to question that the principle of payment 
for overtime at an increased rate should be adopted uniformly 
in all the branches of the service in which payment is by the 
piece, the hour, or the day. Nor is there any reason why it 
should not be applied even to employments compensated on 
an annual basis, where the work is of a routine, standardized 
character resulting in a definitely measurable product. As ex- 
amples of such employments might be cited the operation of 
card-perforating machines, addressographs, multigraphs, and 
the like, or the filing of cards or documents of a standard char- 
acter in files of large size. 

When, however, the attempt is made to apply the principle 
of payment for overtime, whether at regular or extra rates, to 
ordinary clerical and administrative work of the government, 
as is proposed by the Federation of Federal Employees, the 
question assumes another aspect. The work performed in 
these employments is not capable of measurement in standard 
units so that the daily output can be accurately checked. Here, 
if payment is made for overtime, especially if payment is made 
at rates considerably in excess of the normal rate (and the 
proposal of the Federation is for rates running from one-half 
to twice the normal rates), there is created a strong temptation 
on the part of the employee to make overtime work for him- 

^ Sec. 1764 of the Revised Statutes reading: "No allowance or com- 
pensation shall be made for any extra services whatever which any officer 
or clerk may be required to perform, unless expressly authorized by 
law." There is, moreover, a specific provision relating to the Washin^g- 
ton service, providing "that if the heads of departments shall extend the 
hours of labor beyond the 7-hour minimum required by law, such ex- 
tension shall be without additional compensation." (Act of March 15, 
1898, 30 Stat., 316.) 



WORKING CONDITIONS 521 

self by slackening his efforts during normal working hours. 
It will be said, of course, and with truth, that a capable execu- 
tive will be able to repress any tendency of this kind; but it 
would be a mistake to frame personnel policies always with a 
view to their execution by executives of the highest capacity. 
The experience of other personnel systems, as actually admin- 
istered, indicates that for the ordinary clerical and semi-ad- 
ministrative employments payment for overtime has the ten- 
dency described. 

There is another aspect, moreover, in which the clerical 
and administrative services stand on a different basis than do 
those employments which are compensated on a piece, or 
hourly, or daily basis. In these employments, employment is 
not secure but varies according to the amount of work on hand, 
and a diminution in the amount of work promptly results in 
the discharge of the proportionate number of employees. 
Hence it is in the nature of the employment that compensation 
should be proportionate to the output, and that overtime should 
be fully paid for. In the clerical and administrative services 
on the other hand a temporary lull in the activity of the or- 
ganization, which not infrequently occurs and which makes 
wholly possible a temporary reduction of the force without 
any impairment of the efficiency of the organization, is not in 
fact taken advantage of in this way. The employees are re- 
tained in service and though their attendance for the full work- 
ing time is required, the work proceeds at a reduced pressure. 
Instances of this kind are familiar throughout the adminis- 
trative branches of the federal service. It seems no more 
than just, therefore, that in these branches of. the service oc- 
casional overtime work should not be the occasion for any in- 
crease in compensation. ' 
Leave Privileges. — Closely related to the question of 
working hours is that of leave of absence with pay. No uni- 
form rules regarding leave are universally applicable through- 
out the federal service. The most widely applicable legisla- 
tion on the subject provides 



S22 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

That the head of any department may grant thirty days' 
annual leave with pay in any one year to each clerk or em- 
ployee: And provided further, That where some member of 
the immediate family of a clerk or employee is afflicted with 
a contagious disease and requires the care and attendance of 
such employee, or where his or her presence in the department 
would jeopardize the health of fellow clerks, and in exceptional 
and meritorious cases, where a clerk or employee is personally 
ill, and where to limit the annual leave to thirty days in any 
one calendar year would work peculiar hardship, it may be 
extended in the discretion of the head of the department, with 
pay, not exceeding thirty days in any one case or in any one 
calendar year. 

This section shall not be construed to mean that so long 
as a clerk or employee is borne upon the rolls of the depart- 
ment in excess of the time herein provided for or granted that 
he or she shall be entitled to pay during the period of such 
excessive absence, but that the pay shall stop upon the ex- 
piration of the granted leave. (30 Stat. 316, March 15, 
1898.) 

In interpreting this provision the Comptroller of the Treas- 
ury has ruled 

The act of March 15, 1898 (30 Stat. 316), and the acts 
amendatory thereof governing the subject of leaves of absence 
in the executive departments, do not entitle employees to leaves 
of absence as a matter of right, but simply authorize the heads 
of departments, in their discretion, to grant leaves of absence 
with pay within the limits therein fixed. In the exercise of 
their discretion the heads of departments may make the grant- 
ing of leaves of absence dependent upon good conduct or faith- 
ful service, or, under proper conditions, may refuse to grant 
any leaves, and, of course, they make the matter of granting 
leaves the subject of general regulations. Such regulations, 
when duly promulgated, and not in conflict with the law on 
the subject, are binding on all employees concerned, who are 
chargeable with the knowledge of the existence of such regu- 
lations. (XXII Decision of Comptroller of Treasury, 103; 
decision of August 23, 191 5.) 

Each department has its own practice with respect to 
granting leave under the authority of the statute. In several 
departments, the full amount of leave permitted by the law 



WORKING CONDITIONS 523 

is granted under reasonable formalities; whereas in others the 
regulations curtail the amount of sick leave by' providing an 
allowance of 10 days a year which is cumulative, with the pro- 
vision that not more than 30 days may be taken in any one 
year. For establishments not under executive departments, 
special legislation has been adopted in some instances. For 
the postal service, exclusive of the Department proper, the 
provisions are far less generous. Prior to the recent reclas- 
sification of the postal service only fifteen days' leave with 
pay were granted to clerks and employees in first and second 
class post offices and employees of mail bag repair shops (1890, 
October i, 26 Stat. 648). The new provision (1920, June 5, 
41 Stat. 1052), which provides for cumulative sick leave, reads 
as follows : 

Employees in the Postal Service shall be granted fifteen 
days' leave of absence with pay, exclusive of Sundays and holi- 
days, each fiscal year, and sick leave with pay at the rate of 
ten days a year to be cumulative for a period of three years, 
but no sick leave with pay in excess of thirty days shall be 
granted during any three consecutive years. Sick leave shall 
be granted only upon satisfactory evidence of illness and if for 
more than two days the application therefor shall be accom- 
panied by a physician's certificate. 

The fifteen days' leave shall be credited at the rate of one 
and one-quarter days for each month of actual service. 

The provision for 30 days' annual leave, common to the 
departments proper, is generally regarded as reasonably sat- 
isfactory. To this allowance of 30 days are charged all ab- 
sences with pay except those due to personal illness, to con- 
tagious diseases in the family or to military duty in the Na- 
tional Guard on parade or encampment days. Thus if an 
employee is tardy or desires to be excused for a brief period, 
the absence is charged against his annual leave. Statistics 
show that the great majority of employees take each year 
practically the entire amount of annual leave to which they 
are entitled; and, as a rule, they are granted the leave when 
they apply for it. In certain instances, however, employees 



524 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

may be entirely deprived of their leave because of pressure of 
work, or they may be denied permission to take it when they 
want it. Sometimes this restriction applies only to a particu- 
lar person and sometimes to an entire organization unit at a 
particular time. As a result of the restrictions, the employees' 
organizations have advocated legislation that would make an- 
nual leave a matter of right and not a matter of privilege. 
The recommendations of the Reclassification Commission, in 
this matter, as contained in the bill submitted by it were 
that: 

Each employee shall be entitled to a leave of absence with 
full compensation of two and one-half days, exclusive of 
Sundays and holidays for each month during his employ- 
ment. . . . The head of the department shall determine when 
such leave may be granted to an employee under his control 
or direction, but any employee who has not been granted the 
leave to which he is entitled ... at the time requested may 
appeal to the [employment] commission, which shall deter- 
mine whether such employee shall be granted such leave and 
the time when such leave shall be granted and such determina- 
tion shall be final. 

The bill drafted by the Reclassification Commission also 
provided that in case of the death of an employee his estate 
should be paid an amount equal to the compensation to which 
he would be entitled by virtue of any accumulated leave, not 
to exceed 30 days. These provisions go as far as it seems 
wise in the direction of recognizing that the employee has a 
right to his accumulated leave. 

The Reclassification Commission's recommendations in re- 
gard to sick leave recognize the principle of cumulative leave. 
It would have such leave accumulate at the rate of ten days a 
year, with a proviso that not to exceed sixty days could be 
granted in any one calendar year. Statistics gathered by the 
Commission from representative branches of the service for 
the five-year period from 1914 to 1918 showed that the aver- 
age number of days' sick leave was 5.4 and that on the average 
48.9 per cent of the employees took no sick leave; 32.9 per 



WORKING CONDITIONS 525 

cent took 10 days or less, and only 3.5 per cent were granted 
the full 30 days.^ 

The recognition of the principle of cumulative sick leave 
would represent a distinct step in advance over the present 
system of 30 days' leave without any provision for accumula- 
tion, but it is somewhat difficult to see a good reason for limit- 
ing the amount of sick leave which an employee may be granted 
in any one year, provided he has earned it. Many private 
employers have recognized an obligation to care for their em- 
ployees when they are ill. They accomplish this by carrying 
them on the active roll during temporary illness and by retir- 
ing them on disability annuities if they are permanently dis- 
abled. Some foreign governments have similar arrangements, 
and the United States government has now established a re- 
tirement system which provides a disability annuity for any 
one who may be disabled after 15 years of service. 

The proper solution of the problem of sick leave lies in the 
direction of very generous provisions for bona fide cases of 
prolonged illness, with rigid supervision and investigation to 
prevent fraud. All the statistics of sick leave among federal 
employees that have been compiled show that the overwhelm- 
ing majority of the employees do not abuse the privilege of 
sick leave; and if the government should adopt a very liberal 
policy, such as is now pursued by some large private compa- 
nies, it would not involve a very heavy expenditure. The 
cost, doubtless, would be more than offset by the fact that a 
liberal provision in the event of sickness would be a very at- 
tractive feature to government employees whose salaries are 
such that they must manage their affairs on a modest, well or- 
dered basis and cannot easily provide for prolonged illness. 
Physical Environment, Medical Services, etc. — There is 
available no comprehensive survey of the conditions prevailing 
under this head in the post offices, customs houses, and other 
field establishments of the government in which physical con- 
ditions are likely to be below the standard. In the absence of 
such a survey it is impossible to state what the conditions are. 

* Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 93. 



526 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

As regards conditions at Washington, the Reclassification Com- 
mission reported : ^ 

Taken as a whole, government buildings in Washington 
are, it is true, generally clean and well kept, and toilet and 
washing facilities are sufficient. As regards such important 
features as ample working space, proper illumination, ventila- 
tion, and humidity, however, there is neither adequate pro- 
vision nor any accepted standard. Many illustrations have 
been brought to the attention of the Commission of working 
conditions which should be remedied and which must neces- 
sarily have a detrimental influence on the health and efficiency 
of the employees. 

In the field of medical inspection and the provision of med- 
ical and recreational facilities, practically nothing is done by 
the federal government for the employees. Here the practice 
of the government falls far behind that of many progressive 
corporations. The need for work in this line is emphasized 
by the Reclassification Commission in its report as follows : 

As an integral part of any comprehensive employment pol- 
icy, and more specifically as a means of increasing efficiency, 
the government should adopt a program making adequate pro- 
vision for the health and for proper physical working condi- 
tions for its employees which will enable it at least to keep 
pace with the more progressive concerns in the industrial 
world. To be of the greatest value, all work along these lines 
should obviously be coordinated and concentrated in a single 
agency having at its disposal competent medical officers. The 
Public Health Service, which is already handling some work 
of this sort in the Treasury Department, is in an excellent po- 
sition to function as such an agency. It is, therefore, recom- 
mended that the Public Health Service be charged with general 
supervision over all matters affecting the health of government 
employees in so far as these are connected with their official 
work. To exercise such supervision to advantage it should be 
specifically authorized and directed : 

I. To establish rest and relief rooms under the supervision 
of resident nurses and physicians. Such relief rooms should 
be equipped with first aid appliances, simple medicinal reme- 
^Ihid., p. loi. 



WORKING CONDITIONS 527 

dies, and, if possible, a few beds. They should aim to prevent 
minor ailments from having serious results; save the time 
which would otherwise be required' for the employee to con- 
sult a physician or go home; and improve the morale of the 
force. 

2. To establish a visiting-nurse system with the following 
responsibilities : 

(a) To check up sick leave and unexplained absences. 

(b) To see that sick employees are receiving proper 

care and attention, but not to administer bed- 
side care or treatment. 

(c) To ascertain the occurrence of communicable 

diseases and to prevent their spread through 
the medium of other employees living with 
those who had become sick. 

3. To conduct systematic periodical investigations of work- 
ing conditions in government offices, so far as these affect 
the health of the employee, including inspection of such mat- 
ters as ventilation, illumination, toilet facilities, cleanliness, 
etc., with authority to enforce the carrying out of its recom- 
mendations as to needed changes. 

Investigations of this sort might often be made to advan- 
tage in cooperation with the Bureau of Standards, which is in 
a position to be of assistance in such matters. 

4. To conduct a systematic campaign of health educa- 
tion; to check up the health of individual employees with a 
view to improving general health conditions and to detecting 
such troubles as incipient tuberculosis, typhoid carriers, and 
defective mentality; and should encourage employees to pre- 
sent themselves periodically for medical examination.^ 

With respect to the element of safety in the government 
buildings and structures, the Reclassification Commission re- 
ported that: 

Present conditions could be materially improved by the 
adoption of a safety program, which should at least meet the 
standard set by the more progressive States, municipalities, 
and private employers. The very fact that buildings owned, 
leased, or controlled by the federal government are subject to 
no other jurisdiction, makes it incumbent on the government to 
take the initiative in seeing to it that conditions are such as not 

^Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, pp. 102 ff. 



528 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

to endanger either the health or the safety of its employees. 
The few instances of preventable accidents already cited are 
sufficient to indicate that a reasonable safety program would 
save the government far more than it would cost. It is poor 
economy for any employer to expose his employees to unneces- 
sary danger, to say nothing of the human considerations in- 
volved. 

Such a program should be developed along three main lines 
— safe construction, safety inspection, and safety education. 
Some central authority, such as the U. S. Employees' Compen- 
sation Commission, should assume the leadership in the work. 
It should be empowered to employ a competent safety engineer 
who would correlate and exercise general supervision over the 
safety activities of the government, and who would cooperate 
with the various government establishments in the prevention 
of personal injuries among their employees. The Bureau of 
Standards, which is active in the development of safety codes 
and in the conduct of investigations leading to safe construc- 
tion, should be officially associated with the U. S. Employees' 
Compensation Commission in the work.-^ 

^ Ibid., pp. 104 ff. 



CHAPTER XV 

ORGANIZATION FOR PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION 

The organization which should be provided for carrying 
into effect the necessary procedures has necessarily received 
incidental attention in connection with the discussion of the 
several phases of personnel administration. The purpose of 
the present chapter is to bring together these several sugges- 
tions and discussions and, by integrating them, tO' consider in 
a unified way the organization which is and should be provided 
for the several branches of personnel administration in the 
federal service. 

Analysis of the Problem. — The question of the organiza- 
tion for personnel administration in the federal service may 
be considered conveniently under three heads : first, the dis- 
tribution of the several functions of personnel administration 
between the central personnel authority and the departmental 
or bureau authorities ; second, the organization of the central 
personnel authority; and third, the organization of the de- 
partmental or bureau authorities. 

For the purpose of considering the problem of organiza- 
tion for personnel administration, the functions of personnel 
administration may be considered or classified conveniently 
under the following heads : first, the formulation of standard 
schedules of classes and grades of work and of compensation 
rates; second, the appraisal of specific positions; third, re- 
cruitment:; fourth, the regulation of processes affecting par- 
ticular individuals in the personnel, such as promotion, salary 
increase, reassignment, transfer, demotion, dismissal, and the 
like; fifth, the promotion of measures bearing on no particu- 
lar employee specifically, but calculated to improve the health, 

529 



530 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

safety, and morale of the personnel generally; and sixth, the 
suppression of political activity among the personnel. 
Organization for Recruitment. — In the field of recruit- 
ment, the question of the distribution of authority between 
central and departmental agencies is a simple one. The ad- 
vantages of a central recruiting agency over any system of 
departmental recruiting agencies is hardly open to question. 
A central examining machinery, which can be used for the 
service of all departments is manifestly more economical than 
would be a system of separate departmental agencies. Due 
to the wider field over which it operates, and its larger size, 
such an agency is capable of greater specialization along par- 
ticular lines of employment. More important still, it is only 
through such an agency that complete assurance of impartial- 
ity in ratings can be had. The further removed the rating 
body is from the influence of the department or service for 
which recruitment is being carried on, the greater the assur- 
ance that personal preferences will not unduly influence action. 
There is, however, always a danger in a highly centralized 
recruiting system that the particular needs, and more espe- 
cially the peculiar needs, of certain branches of the service may 
not be accurately met. This may be due merely to a lack of 
intimate knowledge on the part of the central agency of those 
peculiar requirements. There is, however, also the possibility 
that the central recruiting agency, being in no wise subordi- 
nate to or under the control of the several departments and 
services, may tend to give too slight a weight to the objections 
and criticisms of its work originating in those departments. 
The central agency is more than likely to feel that such criti- 
cisms arise from an imperfect knowledge of the examining 
technique of which it feels itself the master. These disad- 
vantages of a central recruiting agency have been experienced, 
in a measure at least, in the federal service. In part they have 
been due to the inadequate force which has been at the dis- 
posal of the Civil Service Commission; but the more intangible 
factor mentioned doubtless has also had its influence. The 
attempt should therefore be made to secure, in a more formal 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 531 

way, the assistance of the several departments in the work of 
the central recruiting agency. A departmental organization 
for this purpose need consist merely of a committee of admin- 
istrative officers of various grades, acting through sub-com- 
mittees organized on the basis of the several classes of service 
involved. Such a departmental committee could give inten- 
sive study to the plans of all proposed examinations affecting 
the department before the formal adoption of plans by the 
Civil Service Commission, as well as criticism to questions or 
tests and rating methods actually employed. Out of such de- 
partmental committees might grow inter-departmental com- 
mittees, one of each major class of employment, which might 
perform similar functions. Whatever the precise development 
however, it is believed that in this direction lie important pos- 
sibilities for improving the recruitment practice of the Civil 
Service Commission. 

The process of recruitment does not, however, end with 
the promulgation of eligible lists. The determination of the 
particular list to be selected for certification to fill a particular 
vacancy, the selection of the eligible to be appointed from 
those certified, and the careful observation of the new ap- 
pointee during the probationary period — these are all matters 
in which the department has of necessity a greater or less de- 
gree of participation and for which a definite organization 
should be provided in the department. The extent to which 
such an organization is provided at the present time, as op- 
posed to the practice of trusting the particular administrative 
officer concerned with complete freedom in these respects varies 
from department to department. In hardly any department, 
however, does the appointment clerk figure anything like as 
prominently and effectively in these phases of the recruitment 
process as a capable personnel manager should and would. 

The Problem of the Examining Personnel. — From what 
has been said regarding the several types of tests, and their 
respective limitations and values, it need not be argued at 
length that the correct planning of the enormous variety of 
examinations necessary to meet the recruiting requirements 



532 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

of the federal service, and the framing of the actual tests, calls 
for a high type of ability; and that certainly so far as these 
examinations are applied to the higher and more important 
types of positions, the comparative rating of the candidates 
also calls for a high order of capacity. The development 
of an examining staff equal to these exacting requirements 
would thus seem to be the first essential of the federal re- 
cruitment system. 

In general two methods may be employed in the develop- 
ment of an examining staff. Either an independent staff en- 
gaged exclusively in examining work may be created by the 
central agency, or the personnel of operating departments may 
be used as the occasion arises. From every standpoint the 
creation of an independent staff is the preferable method. 
Only if the recruiting staff is wholly independent of the ap- 
pointing department will the examination system command the 
respect and confidence of the general public and, more particu- 
larly, of prospective competitors and applicants. This is not 
to say that it may not be possible to develop a system in which 
the personnel of the appointing department employed in ex- 
amining work is entirely free, in fact, from the influence of 
the department, or from other improper influence. The point 
is simply that, whatever the actual facts, such a system cannot 
enlist the confidence of the public to the same extent as does a 
system in which the examining force is entirely independent of 
the appointing department, and stands, therefore, in the posi- 
tion of an arbiter between the department and the applicant 
for appointment. 

From the standpoint of technical efficiency also the pro- 
fessional examining staff, when properly recruited and de- 
veloped, gives results far superior to those obtained by the 
use of the personnel of the operating department. It is not 
commonly appreciated to how great an extent the planning of 
examinations, the formulation of tests, and even in a measure 
the rating of the experience and performance of the several 
candidates constitutes a distinct technique or a distinct art. 
The fact will nevertheless be vouched for by all who have had 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 533 

experience in these matters, that an examiner who has both 
skill and experience will almost invariably produce better re- 
sults in the planning of an examination, the formulation of 
tests, and often even in the rating of candidates than a spe- 
cialist in the particular field concerned who is without ex- 
tensive examining experience. 

It is consequently possible to build up, in the course of 
time, a central examining staff of limited numbers that is 
capable of conducting, on its own responsibility and with ex- 
cellent results, examinations covering a surprisingly large and 
varied field. From time to time there arise, however, exam- 
inations calling for knowledge of some specialty which is be- 
yond the range of the permanent examining staff, so that it 
becomes necessary to employ temporary assistants. Here too, 
on the general principle of disassociating the appointing de- 
partment from the examination as completely as possible, it 
is desirable that there should be employed not members of 
the personnel of the appointing department but specialists from 
the business, the professional, or the academic world who have 
no connection with the service. 

Summarizing, it is vital to the success of the recruitment 
system that there be independent examining staffs adequate 
in number and in ability to conduct on their own responsibility 
the entire examination process for most of the positions in 
the service, and that there be available sufficient funds to make 
possible the employment of competent specialists outside the 
service for such examinations as are beyond the range of the 
permanent staff. 

Neither of these requirements has been adequately recog- 
nized by Congress up to the present time in making provision 
for the staff of examiners of the Civil Service Commission. 
The number of examiners has been kept much below what was 
needed properly to handle the great volume of work imposed 
upon it, thus preventing on the one hand as high a develop- 
ment of examining technique for the higher posts as is de- 
sirable, merely through lack of time on the part of the exam- 
iners, and, on the other, the development of a sufficient range 



534 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

on the part of the permanent staff; so that reHance has had to 
be placed to a greater extent than it should be upon outside 
assistance. Even in examinations that are well within the 
capacity of the Commission's examiners there has thus been 
necessitated, particularly for positions in the field services, an 
undue reliance upon outside assistance. 

Even more inimical to the development of an examining 
staff equal to the requirements of the classified service have 
been the compensation rates fixed for examiners. These rates, 
as fixed by Congress or as contemplated in its appropriation 
for the examining staff of the Commission, have been little 
above the rate fixed for the most ordinary kind of clerical 
duty. The salary of the chief examiner has for years been 
and still is $3,600 — less than that fixed for the chief clerks 
in some of the departments; and the salaries of his subordi- 
nates have been fixed at proportionate figures. In view of the 
utter inadequacy of these rates it is indeed amazing that the 
Commission should have been able to recruit and retain as 
efficient an examining staff as it has. The explanation is 
doubtless to be found in large part in the peculiar attractive- 
ness which the position of examiner in the Civil Service Com- 
mission has to a certain type of mind because of its central 
position in the government. 

The inadequacy of the permanent staff provided for the 
Commission by Congress has not been made up by adequate 
provision for the employment of outside experts. It is only 
since 191 1 that appropriations for this purpose have been 
granted at all, and from the first they have been and continue 
to be wholly inadequate in amount. As a result the Com- 
mission has been compelled to rely to no small extent upon 
the services of the personnel of the several departments. This 
practice has been recognized by the Commission itself as ob- 
jectionable for the reasons already set forth. 

Referring to the methods now used by the Commission in 
connection with the use of the personnel of the departments 
for examining work, the Chief Examiner of the Commission, 
in 1915, said: 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 535 

Some years ago, owing to a very inadequate force, the 
commission was obliged to rely almost wholly upon experts 
in the employ of the government and often even to depend 
entirely upon those employed in the bureau for which an ex- 
amination was held. Although, as already stated, such help 
is still obtained to a considerable extent, the commission is al- 
ways represented in the rating of papers by an examiner trained 
in the essentially judicial function of weighing evidence of 
qualifications. In this way the commission is able to assume 
full responsibility for all of the examining work. Moreover, 
experience shows that an examination that will accurately meas- 
ure relative ability for almost any kind of work can best be 
framed by one, or under the supervision of one, who has had 
thorough training in the preparation of competitive examina- 
tions. This is often demonstrated by the fact that questions 
submitted to the commission by scientific experts in various 
lines need revision, for the reason that those who prepare the 
questions have not had experience in the preparation of such 
tests and the rating of examination papers.^ 

It is believed that the Commission should make every ef- 
fort to eliminate entirely the practice of employing depart- 
mental experts for examining work. The Commission is in- 
deed open to the criticism of having failed to present the case 
for larger appropriation for this purpose with sufficient vigor 
to Congress. The same may be said, with justice, of the 
recommendations which the Commission has made from time 
to time for the increase of the salary of the chief examiner 
and his subordinate. It is believed that if these recommenda- 
tions had been pushed more vigorously by the Commission, 
and if the support of the National Civil Service Reform 
League and similar organizations had been enlisted, it would 
then have been possible to have made greater progress in this 
direction. 

In the four systems of formal selections which have been 
set up in the unclassified service — that for presidential post- 
master, for the consular and diplomatic service, for the Pub- 
lic Health Service and for the Coast and Geodetic Survey — 

* Thirty-second Report of the United States Civil Service Commis- 
sion (1915), p. 21. 



536 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the personnel of the department in each case participates in 
the examination process. The Public Health Service controls 
the examination exclusively; the Coast and Geodetic Survey 
also controls the examination for presidential appointment, 
but its choice is limited to persons who have already been 
certified by the Civil Service Commission. 

It is believed that the general position here taken in favor 
of the conduct of the examination process by a personnel en- 
tirely independent of the department has application to all 
three systems. 

Organization for Internal Administration. — The extent to 
which what may be termed the internal processes of personnel 
administration — promotion, transfer and reassignment, sal- 
ary increases, demotions, dismissals, lay-offs, etc. — should be 
controlled centrally has been very fully discussed in the chap- 
ters dealing with those phases, and need not be reviewed here. 
In general it may be said, however, that the principle of or- 
ganization to be observed in this field is that of decentraliza- 
tion, the central agency being employed or invoked only when 
the departmental machinery is thought inadequate or unre- 
liable. That the departmental authorities should always act 
in accordance with regulations promulgated by the central 
authority, and under strict central supervision. Nor should 
this supervision be confined to the review of documents. 
Effective supervision can be exercised only by the use of rep- 
resentatives of a caliber suf^ciently high to command respect 
from the departments, who shall be free to participate in the 
discussions of the departmental authorities. Suggestions 
already made in the several chapters regarding the participa- 
tion of such representatives of the central agency, in the 
processes of promotion, service rating, and removal are illus- 
trative of the type of supervision which should thus be exer- 
cised. 

Organization for Classification of Positions and Salaries. 
— The formulation of standard schedules of classes and grades 
of service, and of the compensation rates attached thereto, 
is manifestly a function for which the final responsibility 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 537 

should rest in a central, rather than in a departmental, agency. 
The central agency can and should obtain invaluable assist- 
tance, however, from an advisory body drawn from the depart- 
ments. This advisory body should be organized primarily by 
classes of employment, each of the departments in which a 
given class of employment is found being represented on the 
committee for that class. For special classes or sub-classes 
of employment found only in one department or service, the 
membership of the committee would be correspondingly drawn 
from a single department or service. Since the schedule of 
classes and grades of service and of compensation rates for 
such a class of service primarily concern only the one depart- 
ment, the central agency may give to the recommendations of 
the departmental committee for this class of service a weight 
more nearly controlling than is given to the recommendations 
of the departmental committee generally. Nevertheless the 
final responsibility for the establishment of the classes, grades, 
and salary rates concerned must rest with the central agency 
and should not be. divided. 

The appraisal of specific positions to determine their allo- 
cation in the standard schedule is even more clearly an indi- 
visible central function. Even here, however, departmental 
committees could exercise a function of information and criti- 
cism that should do much toward reducing the possibilities of 
injustice and of inequitable appraisal. 

Organization for Determination of Physical Work Con- 
ditions. — The promotion of measures designed to promote 
the health, safety, welfare, or morale of the personnel is a 
function that naturally organizes itself along departmental, as 
well as central, lines. The central organization is needed for 
planning and coordination in this field, but the actual detailed 
execution should be left preferably to the several departments, 
which should maintain organizations of their own for this 
specific purpose. 

Organization for Elimination of Political Considerations. 
— The suppression of political assessments, political coercion, 
and improper political activity, being directed chiefly against 



538 ' THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the principal administrative officers themselves, must mani- 
festly be a central function. 

Dual Character of the Problem of Central Personnel 
Administration. — Analysis of the problem of central ad- 
ministration as set forth above shows that the functions per- 
taining to a central administrative agency fall into two dis- 
tinct categories : those having for their purpose to assist the 
several operating services in meeting their personal needs and 
those having for their purpose to supervise and control such 
services in the practical work of handling their personnel. As 
a recruiting agency the central service is nothing more than a 
supply service, one having for its duty to supply the personnel 
needed by the several operating services. As a supervisory 
and controlling agency its function is to see that the operating 
services organize and operate proper systems for insuring 
efficiency on the part of their personnel, determining on a merit 
basis assignments, increases of salaries, promotions, transfers, 
and the like, and that those in authority are not actuated by 
improper motives in handling these matters. 

It is elementary that two distinct functions, particu- 
larly when the ends in view are of a diverse character, should 
never be combined in the same organization unless a positive 
case for so doing can be made out. It is evident in the pres- 
ent case that the attempt by the same organization to perform 
both of the functions that have been mentioned presents seri- 
ous difficulties in respect to the effectiveness with which each 
may be performed. Where the promotive or assisting func- 
tion, as represented by the recruitment of personnel, is car- 
ried on by the same agency that also carries on the regulatory 
work, it is difficult for the departments to assume toward that 
agency a wholly cooperative attitude. That this result actually 
has ensued in the case of the Civil Service Commission is 
hardly open to doubt. Generally speaking, the departments 
are inclined to regard the latter as a restrictive rather than 
a cooperative or service agency. The divorce of the recruiting 
fiinction from the regulatory function would thus make it far 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 539 

easier for the central recruiting agency to develop a truly co- 
operative attitude toward itself on the part of the departments. 

In view of the foregoing the question is presented whether 
the present system of vesting both assisting and controlling 
functions in respect to personnel matters in a single agency, 
the Civil Service Commission, is not fundamentally wrong, 
and whether better results could not be secured by making pro- 
vision for two agencies, one to concern itself wholly with re- 
cruitment and the other with matters of general supervision 
and control. 

Even from the standpoint of the work itself, regardless of 
departmental relations, the independent organization of the 
recruiting work has a high value. From the standpoint of 
volume of work and of the force required, the recruiting work 
of the central agency is almost invariably far greater than the 
regulatory work. This has been particularly so in the case 
of the Civil Service Commission because its regulatory func- 
tions have been left comparatively undeveloped, while on the 
recruiting side it has occupied almost the whole of its pos- 
sible field. But even with a much fuller development of its 
regulatory functions, they would still be considerably less im- 
portant from the standpoint of volume alone than the recruit- 
ing function. The natural result of this situation is that the 
attention which must be given to the recruiting work by those 
in charge of the central agency militates against the fullest 
development of the regulatory functions and against their most 
efficient administration. An agency devoted exclusively to 
regulatory work and relieved from all responsibility of re- 
cruiting work would be able far more effectively and ade- 
quately to exercise the powers of regulation entrusted to it. 

One special aspect of this matter is perhaps worthy of 
mention. In the exercise of its regulatory powers in connec- 
tion with matters of promotion, transfer, and the like, the 
regulatory body necessarily sits in judgment, as it were, upon 
the efficiency of the recruiting process. Manifestly this re- 
sponsibility better becomes the regulatory body when that body 
is not itself responsible for the recruiting system. Moreover, 



540 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

the regulatory body is then in a position to give to the recruit- 
ing system, at least at those points which are involved in this 
connection, an impartial criticism not now available, which 
should be most salutary and beneficial for the recruitment 
system. 

If the recruitment system be thus independently organ- 
ized, there would seem to be no need of placing it in the hands 
of a board. The function of recruitment is a purely technical 
one. A single commissioner, who would discharge substan- 
tially the same functions that are now discharged by the Chief 
Examiner of the Civil Service Commission, but with far higher 
standing and prestige, on general principles, would be more 
effective than a board. 

The work of the regulatory authority, on the other hand, 
is judicial. It affects in an important way the rights and 
fortunes of individual employees and prescribes the regula- 
tions by which its own and departmental action in matters 
coming under its jurisdiction shall be guided. It necessarily 
exercises, moreover, powers of a legislative character. It is 
on all accounts proper, therefore, that a board of at least three 
be provided for the purpose. In view of the importance of 
the decisions to be made, it would possibly be better to have 
a larger board than three. A board of nine has been sug- 
gested by the advisory committee appointed by the Reclassi- 
fication Commission. 

It is also suggested by that committee that the board be 
composed of an equal number of representatives of the em- 
ployees, of the administrative officers of the government, and 
of appointees of the President, the precise manner of selection 
of the employee and the management representatives not being 
specified. If a practical method of selection could be worked 
out, there would be much to recommend this proposal. It 
would enable the management and the employees to get their 
views before the regulatory authority, not from the outside, 
as is now the case, but within the regulatory body itself; while 
at the same time the members appointed directly by the Presi- 
dent would hold the balance of power in any issue on which 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 541 

the management and the subordinate employees might be at 
variance, through a divergence of interest, fancied or real. 

Regardless, however, of the size of the central regulatory 
body, new principles should be observed in its composition. 
It should be wholly non-partisan, and it should have a more 
permanent tenure than is now possessed by the Civil Service 
Commission. The present requirement of the civil service 
law that not more than two of the three members of the Civil 
Service Commission shall be members of the same political 
party has not prevented that body from time to time from 
having something of a political character, though it must be 
said that some presidents, notably Roosevelt, have permitted 
the majority of the Commission to be of the opposite poUtical 
faith over a considerable portion of their administrations. A 
truly non-partisan character in the Commission can be as- 
sured, however, only by establishing a position of permanence 
in office more firmly than it is believed to exist at the present 
time. This can be done effectively, it is believed, only by the 
application of the system now found in the organization of 
the Interstate Commerce Commission ; that of appointment for 
fixed terms, such terms to be overlapping, and with the removal 
power, though legally still unimpaired in the hands of the 
President, hedged about with the moral restriction of a statu- 
tory declaration that it shall be exercised only for reasons 
necessary for the good of the service and to be communicated 
to Congress or to the Senate. 

Finally, it would be well to provide in the act that the per- 
sons selected as Civil Service Commissioners shall be persons 
experienced in public administration. It is believed that were 
all these provisions to be put into effect there would be de- 
veloped, in a relatively short time, a tradition of permanence 
and non-political character for the Civil Service Commission 
that would result in a distinct improvement, not merely in the 
personnel of that body, but in the regard in which the whole 
system of civil service administration stands in the public 
estimation. 

Desirable as are these changes in the organization of the 



542 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

central regulatory body, their effectiveness must continue to 
be limited until an adequate salary is provided for the mem- 
bers of the board. The present salary of the Civil Service 
Commissioners, $4,000 per annum, is pitifully inadequate. 
Members of the personnel regulatory board, whatever their 
numbers, should receive at least a compensation as great as 
and probably greater than that received by the chiefs of any 
of the bureaus or independent establishments of the govern- 
ment. 

The question of whether the recruiting and regulating 
functions should be united or separated is the major question 
in the organization of the central personnel administration. 
This decided, the organization of the other functions of per- 
sonnel administration may be determined on more readily. 

The formulation of a standard schedule of classes and 
grades of service, and of compensation rates, is one which 
principally concerns the regulatory body, since it is that body 
which is to promulgate the regulations for and administer 
regulations for increases of salary, promotion from grade to 
grade, transfer from class to class, and the other varied ques- 
tions involved in the administration of a large personnel sys- 
tem, which should in every case involve a consideration of 
the standard schedule of classes and grades. So far, however, 
as the positions and grades in the schedule are original en- 
trance positions, the formulation of the schedule is of in- 
terest also to the recruiting agency, and provision should be 
made for its cooperation with the regulatory agency. The 
function of appraising positions and allocating them to stand- 
ard schedules is one which primarily concerns the regulatory 
agency. The recruitment agency is hardly concerned at all. 
The promotion of the health, safety, and morale of the per- 
sonnel is a function which does not bear any close relation to 
either the function of recruitment or regulation, nor is it ap- 
parent that there is any advantage in associating it with the 
organization scheme of either of those functions. The Pub- 
lic Health Service suggests itself as an agency that might have 
this matter in charge. 



ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION 543 

The last of the major classes of functions to be performed 
by the central personnel administration — that of suppressing 
and detecting political coercion and improper political activity 
in the service — is similarly a function pertaining to the regu- 
lative rather than the recruiting agency. 
Departmental Organization. — It v^ould involve too great 
a departure from the purpose of the present work to enter into 
any detailed consideration of the technical problems involved 
in setting up and operating the machinery required in each 
department or service for the proper handling of personnel 
matters. It is proper, however, to point out that scarcely a 
beginning has been made by the several departments and ser- 
vices of the federal government towards the provision of the 
machinery that is required for the proper handling of this 
branch of administration. The existing offices of appointment 
clerks are for the most part but offices of record or for the 
formal performance of certain duties. What is required is 
that these offices shall be expanded so as to give to them 
responsibility in respect to practically all personnel matters. 
The appointment clerk should have a status and character 
comparable to that of the employment manager of big private 
corporations. It should be his responsibility to see that proper 
systems for assigning, rating, and determining the efficiency 
of employees are devised and properly operated. The ex- 
istence of such a departmental personnel manager, further- 
more, would facilitate greatly the central personnel agencies 
in the proper performance of their duties. 



CHAPTER XVI 

EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMITTEES 

The question of the place of organizations of employees 
in a system of public personnel administration presents itself 
in two forms: (i) The desirability of employees effecting 
organizations along trade union lines and in case of the forma- 
tion of such unions, the relations that such unions should have 
to unions composed of persons other than government em- 
ployees; and (2) the desirability of the constitution by gov- 
ernment employees of committees having for their purpose to 
represent them in respect to making known their desires as re- 
gards their employment conditions. The first aspect of this 
question will be considered under the head of "Employees' 
Organizations," the latter under that of "Employees' Com- 
mittees." 

Employees' Organizations. — Until recent years the prob- 
lem of eliminating politics from the federal personnel system 
has been confined to preventing the politicians from using the 
personnel system for political ends. Within recent years, how- 
ever, the problem has emerged of preventing the organized 
employees from using their political power to compel the po- 
litical government to take action in personnel matters that 
is not warranted or demanded by administrative considera- 
tions alone. 

Although this problem is of comparatively recent develop- 
ment in the United States, it is not novel. Sooner or later it 
is encountered in every large public personnel system in which 
the employees have political rights and are permitted to or- 
ganize for the collective use of their political power. Al- 
though old and universal, the problem presents itself with 
varying force and emphasis in different systems because of 

544 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 545 

the varying distribution of the political and administrative 
power in the several governmental organizations. 

In Great Britain the existence of "dock-yard constituen- 
cies" — that is, "navy-yard constituencies" — has long been rec- 
ognized.'- The control of such constituency over members of 
Parliament, however, is much weaker than in a similar case 
in the United States for the reason that the English member 
is not irrevocably bound to any one constituency, since if de- 
feated in one he may seek election from another district. 

In Victoria the political power of the organized workers 
on the state railways became so pronounced and threatened so 
continuous an increase that the constitution of the province 
was amended so as to deprive all civil servants, including the 
railway employees, of their rights of general suffrage, sub- 
stituting therefor the right to elect a fixed number of mem- 
bers who would be officially recognized as representing the in- 
terests of the Civil Service. 

Existing Employees' Organization. — A large proportion 
of the federal employees are members of employees' organ- 
izations, in the nature of trade unions. In the postal service 
unionization is fairly complete, there being large national or- 
ganizations of postal clerks, of letter carriers, and of railway 
mail employees, not to mention an organization of presidential 
postmasters. In the service outside the postal department is 
found the National Federation of Federal Employees, com- 
posed of a number of local "Federal Employees' Unions" lo- 
cated at a number of different points throughout the country. 

The peculiar feature of the Federal Employees' Unions 
embraced in the National Federation of Federal Employees is 
that their membership is confined to no single occupational 
group and no single branch of the service but is open to any 
and every federal employee, other than postal employees, of 
whatever occupation and in whatever branch of the service em- 
ployed. In the smaller places all the federal employees in the 
locality are members of a single, undifferentiated local fed- 
eral employees' union, and in the larger places, as at Wash- 

^ See Lowell, The Government of England, vol. I, p. 149. 



546 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ington, are found two or more distinct local federal employ- 
ees' unions, each one embracing a different part of the service. 

In addition to these organizations, which are distinctively 
for federal employees, a very large proportion of the federal 
service is composed of men engaged in mechanical trades who 
are members of the regular craft unions of their respective 
trades, precisely as if they were employed in private industries. 
Most of the plant personnel of the Government Printing Office 
at Washington and of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 
Washington, and almost the entire mechanical personnel of the 
various arsenals and navy yards fall under this category. In 
addition a number of miscellaneous field employees found 
at various points throughout the country are members of the 
regular trade unions of their class. In certain towns, where 
the skilled mechanics of a given class are, for the most part, 
federal employees (as is the case in certain of the arsenal and 
navy-yard towns) the local craft unions are in effect unions 
of federal employees. 

All the postal unions, the National Federation of Federal 
Employees, and, needless to say, all the craft unions to which 
the mechanical employees belong are affiliated with the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor. It thus results that these federal 
employees' organizations are able, to a certain extent, to mar- 
shal behind the demands or requests which they make upon 
Congress the support of the American Federation of Labor. 
Legislative Activities of Employees' Organizations. — 
Until within the last few years, the attempt of these organiza- 
tions to influence Congressional action has been confined, with 
insignificant exceptions, to the postal service. In foreign coun- 
tries also it has almost always been in the postal service that 
the movement for the organization of public employees and 
for the use of their organized political power has first devel- 
oped. The industrial character of the postal service, as con- 
trasted with the administrative character of the work of most 
government services, the large numbers of men employed in 
identical operations, and their distribution over every part of 
the country, are the obvious reasons for this phenomenon. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 547 

In 1888 when the bill providing an eight-hour day for let- 
ter carriers was before Congress, it had the active support of 
the Knights of Labor, then occupying a place in the labor 
movement similar to that now held by the American Federa- 
tion of Labor. The carriers were not then organized, but it 
was generally understood that in return for the support of the 
Knights, the carriers would' support the candidates, both 
national and local, endorsed by the Knights.^ 

In the following year a national organization of the letter 
carriers was eflfected, followed, two years later, by the forma- 
tion of a national organization of the railway mail clerks. 
Both these organizations, however, were beneficial in char- 
acter. So far as they developed any interest in compensation 
or working conditions, they did so under the tutelage of the 
supervisory officers of the post office department. Even the 
selection of their national officers, in whom the active direction 
of the organizations was vested, was largely influenced by 
the department. The organization of post office clerks, formed 
nine years later, in 1900, was of similar character. 

Although the general policy of the three organizations men- 
tioned was thus a passive one, the demand among the postal 
employees for a revision of the compensation schedules in 
force was so insistent that the organizations perforce put their 
active support behind the bills on this subject which were in- 
troduced in Congress beginning in 1898. Despite the support 
of the American Federation of Labor, however, the organiza- 
tions found themselves unable even to obtain a hearing before 
the House Committee on Post Offices. The chairman of that 
committee, E. F. Loud, was regarded as primarily responsible 
for the attitude of the committee; and an agreement appears 
to have been reached between the postal organizations and 
the American Federation of Labor to work for ^lis defeat in 
the 1904 election. Doubtless largely because of this opposi- 

^ For data on this and several other points connected with the early 
history of the postal organizations the writer is indebted to an unpub- 
lished manuscript by Benjamin Glassberg, in the library of the New 
York Bureau of Municipal Research, dealing with the organization and 
political activities of public employees. 



548 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

tlon, Mr. Loud was defeated. This represents the first in- 
stance, and one of the few instances, in which a member of 
Congress has been pubHcly singled out for defeat by the or- 
ganized employees. 

The activity of the postal organizations in connection with 
the salary revision legislation was regarded as improper by 
President Roosevelt, and, on January 31, 1902, he issued an 
executive order forbidding all officers and employees "either 
directly or indirectly, individually or through associations, to 
solicit an increase of pay or to influence or attempt to influ- 
ence in their own interests, any other legislation whatever, 
either before Congress or its committees or in any way save 
through the heads of departments under or in which they serve, 
on penalty of dismissal from the Government service." ^ It 
will be observed that this order, although obviously aimed at 
organized attempts to influence legislation, by its terms, would 
seem to prohibit the individual employee from soliciting any as- 
sistance from his Congressman for the purpose of securing 
an increase in pay. In this field, it was not very effective, 
though it did have some influence on the situation. Even with 
respect to the activity of organizations or organized groups 
it was not scrupulously observed; nevertheless, it constituted 
an irritating check on the activities of those organizations. 

By order of November 26, 1908, the prohibition was made 
more sweeping. It provided that 

no bureau, office, or division chief or subordinate in any de- 
partment of the government, and no officer of the army or 
navy or marine corps stationed in Washington, shall apply 
to either House of Congress, or to any Committee of either 
House of Congress, or to any Member of Congress, for leg- 
islation, or for appropriations, or for Congressional action of 
any kind, except with the consent and knowledge of the head 
of the department; nor shall any such person respond to any 
request for information from either House of Congress, ex- 
cept through, or authorized by, the head of his department. 

* Nineteenth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1902), p. 75. By amendment of January 25, 1906, this order was ex- 
tended to include also the independent establishments, 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 549 

It will be seen that the outstanding addition to the earlier 
order was that the employees were prohibited from communi- 
cation with Congressmen or Congressional committees not 
merely on their own motion but also in response to requests 
for information which might originate in Congress, its com- 
mittees, or with individual Congressmen. 

By order of April 8, 191 2, the preceding orders were made 
less rigorous nominally, not by withdrawing the prohibition of 
communication between employees and Congress but by pro- 
viding that such communications "shall be transmitted through 
heads of their respective departments or offices, who shall for- 
ward them without delay with such comment as they may 
deem requisite in the public interest." It needs but slight 
familiarity with the conditions of the public service to surmise 
that there would be few instances in which the employee, or 
even a group of employees, would venture to forward through 
the head of the department for transmission to Congress "with 
such comments as he might deem suitable," a petition or re- 
quest which they knew to be definitely opposed to the wishes 
of the head of the department or indeed of their immediate 
superior. 

The severity of the restrictions imposed by these orders 
upon the activities of the postal organizations and of other 
less formidable groups of employees, including the military and 
naval officers, led to a determined effort to secure their repeal 
by Congressional action. How this was achieved in the face of 
the orders it is not necessary here to inquire; but, by act of 
August 24, 1912, Congress provided^ that "the right of per- 
sons employed in the civil service of the United States, either 
individually or collectively, to petition Congress or any mem- 
ber thereof or to furnish information to either House of Con- 
gress or to any committee thereof, shall not be denied or in- 
terfered with." 2 

'^2)7 Stat. 583. This provision was a proviso to a section regulating 
the procedure to be followed in making removals from the classified 
service. 

^ The section also provided that the presenting by any such person 
or groups of persons (in the postal service) of any grievance or 



550 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Meanwhile, in 1905, a development of primary importance 
had occurred — the formation of a national association of postal 
clerks organized along trade union lines with the specific pur- 
pose of working for improved compensation and labor con- 
ditions, and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.^ 

The organization of this association, "The National Fed- 
eration of Post Office Clerks," represented a clear-cut revolt 
against the policy of departmental tutelage and non-affiliation 
which characterized the United Association of Post Office 
Clerks formed five years before. 

The postal organizations, since their first activity in the 
late nineties in connection with the reclassification bills men- 
tioned above, have been continuously engaged in pushing 
legislation affecting compensation, hours of labor, and working 
conditions in the service. For some years the policy of con- 
ciliating the department was pursued more or less consistently 
by the officers of all the organizations except the Post Office 
Clerks' Federation, and they restricted their activity to the 
advocacy of measures not too violently opposed by the depart- 
ment; but in 1917,^ despite the well known opposition of the 
department, both the carriers' and railway mail associations 
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. A complete 
break was thus made from the tradition of departmental 
tutelage, and at the same time was secured a most effective 
ally in the legislative battle. It may be ventured that the speed 

grievances to Congress or any member thereof, should not be cause for 
reduction in rank or compensation, or removal. This provision, how- 
ever, would not seem to have been unnecessary in view of the general 
rule applicable to the entire civil service above cited. 

^ Already in 1898, in the Chicago Post Office, always a storm center 
in movements among the postal employees, the clerks had formed an 
organization and affiliated themselves with the Knights of Labor; and, 
two years later, had transferred their affiliation to the growing American 
Federation of Labor. 

^The United Association of Post Office Clerks also sought to affiliate 
with the American Federation of Labor but was unable to do so because 
the National Federation of Post Office Clerks, formed in 1905, was al- 
ready affiliated. Several unsuccessful attempts to amalgamate these two 
organizations have been made. At the present time it seems likely that 
the Federation will gradually absorb the Association. The Rural Car- 
riers' Association has not affiliated with the American Federation of 
Labor, nor, as may be inferred from the character of its membership, is 
it likely to do so. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 551 

and smoothness with which the bill creating the postal salary 
reclassification commission in 19 19, and the bill embodying 
the recommendations of that commission in 1920, became law 
were due in no small measure to the influence which the co- 
operating postal organizations and the American Federation of 
Labor were able to exert in Congress. 

The influence in Congress of employees' organizations af- 
filiated with organized labor was first exerted in an important 
way, in relation to branches of the service other than the 
postal service, in 191 5. In that year, under the urging of 
the American Federation of Labor, acting at the instance of 
the International Association of Machinists, Congress attached 
to the army appropriation bill a rider prohibiting the use of 
any money appropriated therein for the payment of any em- 
ployee engaged in making time studies or speed tests. This 
provision was aimed particularly at the attempt of the Chief 
of Ordnance to apply to the arsenals the methods of so-called 
"scientific management." The provision proving only partially 
effective, it was superseded in 1916 by an act directly prohibit- 
ing the use of the stop watch or any other time measuring 
device for the purpose of making a time study of any job 
of any employee of the government. Provisions to this effect 
are now attached to the annual' appropriation acts as a matter 
of course. 

The comprehensive organizations of the federal employees 
not members of organized trades, outside the postal' service, 
may be said to have begun in 19 16. Prior to that time sporadic 
attempts at organization 'had been made, sometimes with an 
idea of permanence, sometimes merely to further specific meas- 
ures, such as retirement legislation. In some of the field 
services organizations or particular classes of employees had 
developed here and there, such as the association of store- 
keepers and gangers in the customs service, composed mostly 
of minor political employees and having mainly a political 
character. None of these organizations, however, made any 
real impression upon the situation or endured for any consid- 
erable length of time, and in no case outside the postal service 



552 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

was the attempt made to organize on a national scale embracing 
the whole of the service. 

In 191 5, federal employees in San Francisco founded a 
local organization that called itself the "Federal Employees' 
Union" and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
— a step wholly novel for any organization of federal em- 
ployees outside the postal service. Its example was imitated 
in a number of cities and, by 1916, no less than fifty differ- 
ent local unions of federal employees had sprung up all affiliated 
with the American Federation of Labor. After affiliation with 
the national central labor body, the formation of a national 
organization of federal employees was a natural step and in 
1916 the National Federation of Federal Employees was 
formed, all the local unions of federal employees becoming 
constituent bodies of the Federation and the Federation in turn 
affiliating itself with the American Federation of Labor. 

That after so many decades of relative inactivity among 
the non-postal, non-trade employees it was possible within a 
few years to create an organization on a national scale is, in 
many respects, surprising. Undoubtedly, however, the time, if 
not ripe, was at least favorable for the development of a na- 
tional organization of the federal employees. With organiza- 
tion going on apace in every branch of industry and in state 
and municipal services it would have been surprising if some 
substantial progress in the same direction had not been made 
in the federal service. The rapid progress is to be attributed, 
however, main4y to the persistent efforts in Congress to enact 
a law, particularly obnoxious to the employee, providing for a 
minimum eight-hour day in the departmental offices in Wash- 
ington. This particular proposal immediately aligned with 
the employees' organization the powerful influence of the 
American Federation of Labor, in whose program the reduc- 
tion of hours, even below the eight-hour limit, is fore-shadowed 
and which, in any case, would necessarily oppose on principle 
the fixation by legislation of a minimum number of hours. 
Supported by the American Federation of Labor the organiza- 
tion, even in its infancy, was able to make a demonstration 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 553 

of effectiveness in preventing the enactment of this legisla- 
tion which immediately attracted the attention of federal 
employees the country over. 

The growth of the employees' organizations has been di- 
rectly and unmistakably reflected in the growing influence 
which they exercise upon legislation. Particularly has this been 
so in connection with the National Federation of Federal Em- 
ployees. Two important measures in the enactment of which 
the influence of this organization was distinctly felt were the 
act creating the Reclassification Commission and the act estab- 
lishing a retirement system, the first passed by the Sixty-fifth 
and the second by the Sixty-sixth Congress. The retirement 
act in particular may be said to have been forced to passage by 
the employees' qrganizations. Indeed, in the report sub- 
mitted to the Senate by the Committee on Civil Service and 
Retrenchment recommending the enactment of that act, the 
committee made repeated reference to the support given to 
various provisions of the bill by a committee of employees 
whose advice it had sought (which committee was in fact 
designated by the employees' unions) .and made no reference 
whatever to any support given to any particular provision of 
the bill either by any administrative officer or by any outside 
source representing citizen interest. The instance is all the 
more signifit:ant because such impartial criticism as that given 
to the measure by qualified outside organizations was sub- 
stantially unanimous in condemning its provisions as impro- 
vident and not developed upon a sound actuarial basis. ^ 

While the methods of attack of all the employees' organiza- 
tions is substantially the same, the National Federation of 
Federal Employees appears to have developed its tactics more 
fully than any of the other organizations, and they are accord- 
ingly worthy of special study. The constitution of the organ- 

* Repeated reference is indeed made in the report to the recommenda- 
tions made and data supplied by a certain employee of the Pension Office, 
the implication being that this individual had advised the Committee in 
the character of an impartial expert. In point of fact the employee re- 
ferred to was one of the most important and active members both of 
the National Federation of Federal Employees and of the so-called Em- 
ployees' Retirement Conference. 



554 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

ization declares that its methods for obtaining its object shall 
be "by petition to Congress, by creating or forcing public senti- 
ment favorable to proposed reform, by cooperation with gov- 
ernment officials and employees, by legislation and other lawful 
means." It is the "other lawful means" that are most sig- 
nificant for the purpose under discussion. What these are is 
well illustrated by an extract from the report of the legislative 
committee of the Federation to its annual convention in 1919: 
"Because of the fact that residents of the District of Columbia 
have no vote, the largest Local in the National Federation, 
that is, the organization of the employees in the Washington 
service, has the least direct influence upon Congress. The Na- 
tional Legislative Committee pointed out, therefore, to officers 
of the local the importance of organizing a back fire upon mem- 
bers of Congress by friends and relatives of the members 
of the local who are voters in their own states. The union 
responded promptly to this and is now making a detailed 
catalogue of its members according to Congressional districts. 
This will unquestionably augment the legislative forces of the 
National Federation to a vast degree." ^ Instances could 
readily be multiplied from the literature and the press notices 
issued by the organization of the employment of similar meth- 
ods. 

With methods of this kind in active and energetic use in 
the hands of skilled union officers, and the officers of the 
employees' unions have unquestionably displayed a high type 
of ability in this field, it is easy to believe that the President 
of the National Federation is not overstating the case when 
he says that "in Congress, where two years ago a favored road 
to cheap popularity was sarcasm at the expense of the govern- 
ment employee, the few members who now indulge such tactics 
are ridiculed by their fellow members and repudiated by their 
political parties. The Federation's requests are listened to and 
its support is sought by members of Congress as a political 
asset." 2 

* National Federation of Federal Employees, Report of the President, 
Legislative Committee and Secretary-Treasurer, 1919, p. 5. 
^Ibid., p. I. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 555 

It may be hazarded, however, that the employees' unions 
themselves could not have built up the important influence 
which they now exercise through their own members alone, 
however well chosen and well executed the methods employed. 
Unquestionably a major element in that influence has been the 
affiliation of those unions with the American Federation of 
Labor. 

Through this affiliation the potential power of that organ- 
ization stands behind every attempt which may be made by 
the employees' unions to secure favorable Congressional action 
in matters of hours, wages, working conditions, etc. The 
source of strength in the American Federation in Congress is 
common knowledge. It consists in the ability to encompass, or 
at least to threaten, the defeat for reelection of almost any 
member of Congress who comes from a district in which or- 
ganized labor is a factor, and in not a few states the ability 
to affect seriously the chances of reelection of a Senator. It is 
not commonly appreciated that in the more or less equal division 
of the voting strength between the two parties that normally 
prevails in most districts and in many states, an organized 
group, even though relatively small, which is able to throw the 
entire voting power of its membership on one side or the other 
of the scales, is a factor whose importance is out of all pro- 
portion to its relative numbers as compared with the entire 
voting population of the district or state. It thus results 
that to an increasing degree a Congressman, who represents a 
constituency in which organized labor is an important polit- 
ical factor, opposes the wishes of the employees' unions at 
his peril ; and even a Senator cannot ignore them with entire 
impunity. 

The National Federation of Federal Employees, up to the 
present time, has made perhaps more consistent and direct 
use politically of its affiliation with the American Federation 
of Labor than have the postal unions. Nor has it made any 
attempt at concealment of this cooperation. Witness the fol- 
lowing from an article in the official organ of the Federation 
by its President: 



556 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

What has the National Federation of Federal Employees 
gained by its affiliation with the x^merican Federation of La- 
bor? I. It was the A. F. of L. that at the beginning of our 
organization's history defeated the Borland amendment ^ the 
first time it was introduced in Congress. Later the A, F. of L., 
under the leadership of President Gompers, was largely in- 
strumental in bringing about the veto by President Wilson 
of the Legislative bill because it contained the Borland amend- 
ment. 

2. It was the membership of the A. F. of L., through its 
affiliated body, the Central Labor Union of Kansas City, that 
cast the votes which defeated Representative Borland in the 
primaries in his district in 1918, and prevented his return to 
Congress. This happened because we were affiliated to the 
A. F. of L. 

3. It was the membership of the A. F. of L., through its 
Central Labor Unions in every state that asked Congress, at 
our request, to grant the war bonus, first of $120 per year, 
and then of $240 per year, which 200,000 federal employees 
are now receiving. Those central labor unions, representing 
millions of votes throughout the country, helped us because we 
were affiliated to the A. F. of L.^ 

Right of Employees' Organization to Affiliate with Out- 
side Organizations. — The right of federal employees' 
unions to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor is, 
so far as the postal service is concerned, now recognized, at 
least impliedly, by statute. Logically the same principle ex- 
tends to all other classes of employees. By act of August 24, 
1912,^ Congress provided that persons in the postal service 
should not be reduced in rank or compensation or removed be- 
cause of "membership in any society or association or other 
form of organization of postal employees not affiliated with 
any outside organization imposing an obligation or duty upon 
them to engage them in strike or proposing to assist them in 
any strike against the United States." Since the terms of 
affiliation of the postal unions with the American Federation 

* An amendment to an appropriation act requiring eight hours' labor 
by all employees. 

" "Our Relations with the A. F. of L.," by President Luther C. 
Steward, N. F. F. E., in The Federal Employee, November 29, 1919, p. 2. 

'37 Stat. 555. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 557 

of Labor do not require them to engage in any strike against 
the United States, nor propose that the American Federation 
of Labor shall assist the postal unions in any strike against 
the United States, this condition in effect legalizes the affilia- 
tion of the postal unions with the American Federation of 
Labor. 

During the debate on the retirement bill in 1920 an amend- 
ment was moved in the Senate barring from the benefits of 
the act any employee who was a member of any organization 
of government employees which is "affiliated with, subject to, 
or a member of, or component part of, or acknowledges the 
authority of, any higher or superior body or institution of or- 
ganized labor," ^ 

The arguments advanced in the extended speeches made 
in support of this amendment may be reduced tO' four : first, 
that the American Federation of Labor had taken a position 
against the government in the steel strike and the coal strike, 
and that affiliation with the Federation, therefore, put the 
employees themselves in the position of being "against the 
government"; second, that the American Federation of Labor 
was a class organization and that it was improper for a mem- 
ber of the government service to be affiliated with an organiza- 
tion which represented a particular class ; third, that the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor was engaged in a political campaign 
against the Congressmen and Senators who had incurred its 
disfavor by their votes upon legislation, and their affiliation 
with it, therefore, put the organized federal employees in the 
position of conducting a political warfare against members of 
Congress ; and fourth, that through this affiliation, the federal 
employees were attempting to coerce Congress into the en- 
actment of legislation favorable to their own interests. 

The first three of these objections are beyond the range of 
the present volume and merely call for a remark upon the 

^ Congressional Record, April 2, 1920, p. 5530. It can hardly be be- 
lieved that the enactment of this resolution was really expected or even 
hoped for by its mover. Its practice would have rneant the exclusion 
from the benefit of the act of the overwhelming majority of the employees 
of the government. 



\ 



558 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

pernicious tendency to restrict still further the anomalous posi- 
tion of the federal employee by adding to the restrictions upon 
his political activity restrictions upon his expression of eco- 
nomic views. The last objection mentioned, however, is ger- 
mane to the present discussion. 

Right of Employees' Organizations to Strike. — It now 
remains to take notice of a question which is now and again 
raised — the right of the federal employees to strike. Properly 
regarded, this is not a problem of personnel administration 
at all. The threat or possibility of a strike in any branch of 
the federal service is a symptom of a gravely defective system 
of personnel administration in that branch. Did there exist 
in the federal service a well designed machinery for the pre- 
sentation by the employees of their views, both on current 
minor grievances and on the basic questions of compensation, 
hours, and working conditions, and an impartial administrative 
board vested with adequate authority to rectify improper 
conditions, thus presented to it, the possibility of an attempt 
to strike would never arise. Even under present conditions, 
where virtually no machinery exists, where in certain branches 
of the service the administrative officers have flatly refused 
even to discuss matters with the representatives of the em- 
ployees' organizations, and where relief can be had in most 
cases only through the tedious process of legislation, there has 
never (except perhaps in two or three instances so peculiar and 
doubtful as to be insignificant) been any resort to the strike 
weapon by the federal employees. 

If the experience of the past and an impartial estimate 
of the present situation may be relied on, so long as reasonably 
tolerable compensation and working conditions are provided 
in the federal service, there is no danger whatever that the 
question of the right of federal employees to strike will be- 
come a practical one. For the present it seems somewhat ideal, 
therefore, to consider the controversial, legal, and theoretical 
aspects of the question. Such discussion usually tends, more- 
over, to obscure rather than to emphasize the need of the de- 
velopment of a system of personnel administration which will 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 559 

make strikes of federal employees improbable rather than il- 
legal. 

All this rests, of course, on the assumption that the wholly 
reasonable, not to say submissive, temper which the federal \ 

employees have consistently manifested, will continue. Should 
a different temper develop among any important bodies of 
federal employees, a different question would be presented. 
There is little likelihood that even so the question would be 
raised in any important way by any group of federal employees 
in the ordinary administrative or mechanical branches, since 
it is hardly conceivable that the government would be coerced 
by a strike or threatened strike of such a group. It is only 
in a few services, of which the postal service is far the most 
important, that a strike, if permitted, might actually bring 
the government to terms ; and it is only in such services, con- 
sequently, that the strike weapon would be fikely to be in- ^ 
voked by the employees under any circumstances. Should a 
disposition ever develop among the employees in such services 
to use the strategic power which their employment confers upon 
them to enforce demands which are rejected by the common 
judgment of the nation, there will be presented a fundamental 
political and social problem which lies wholly outside the 
sphere of technical personnel administration to which this 
problem is devoted, in the contentious realms of political theory 
and practical politics. 

General Conclusions Regarding Place of Employees' 
Organizations in a Government Personnel System. — A 
situation in which the personnel legislation of Congress is 
shaped largely by the political power of the organized em- 
ployees is wholly improper. A just and equitable solution 
of the federal personnel question is not to be expected from 
the action of Congress or a committee of Congress susceptible 
to such coercion. The employees represent a special interest, 
and their demands by no means may be consistent in all cases 
with public interest. It is idle to retort that the public should 
organize itself as thoroughly as the employees to oppose such 
demands of special interests as are inconsistent with the gen- 



56o THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

eral public interest. No general public interest is ever organ- 
ized as thoroughly or as consistently as a special interest. 

On the other hand, to condemn the employees for the course 
they have taken would be worse than futile. Without organiza- 
tion they were for years entirely at the mercy of their ad- 
ministrative superiors and of Congress, and in large measure 
they still are, and, as a study of subsequent pages will show, 
their interests have been neglected in vital respects. Only 
through organization have some of the most essential improve- 
ments of recent years been effected. 

Again, as long as power over personnel matters is wholly 
retained in the hands of Congress, the employees have no 
alternative but to organize and to attempt to secure from 
Congress the enactment of what they regard as their just de- 
mands. Congress, however, has been notoriously slow to act 
in personnel matters when impelled merely by the force of 
right reason, but notoriously quick to act when its members 
fear that the effect of their inaction may be reflected in the 
ensuing election returns. It is thus wholly natural and in- 
evitable that the employees should seek to influence Congres- 
sional action by the quicker and more certain methods. 

The remedy for the wholly undesirable relationship that 
now exists between the employees' unions and Congress is to 
be found unquestionably only in the delegation by Congress of 
virtually all its present control over personnel matters to an 
administrative body, the members of which, on the one hand, 
would not be subject as are the members of Congress to political 
pressure from the employee^, and on the other hand, would 
be free from domination by the administration. Despite their 
increasing success in securing desired legislation from Con- 
gress, the employees' organizations, or at least the National 
Federation of Federal Employees, have themselves recognized 
the impropriety of Congressional regulations of personnel mat- 
ters in detail. The National Federation has stood Consistently 
for the development in the government of a central personnel 
agency vested with large powers over personnel matters, sub- 
stantially as herein urged. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 561 

Nor must it be thought that because exception has been 
taken on principle to the poHtical activity of employees' organ- 
izations, criticism is intended of the specific measures for whose 
enactment the employees' organizations have been more or less 
completely responsible. With the single exception of the Re- 
tirement Act, the measures contended for by the employees' 
organizations have been in the main well considered, and would 
long ago have been placed upon the statute books without the 
intervention of the employees, had Congress had a correct 
understanding of the personnel problem. It is rather to the 
future that the exception herein taken to the continuance of 
political activity on the part of employees' organizations is 
directed. 

Employees' Committees. — The desirability of providing 
some machinery by which the opinions of the body of the sub- 
ordinate personnel on matters of personnel administration may 
be authoritatively brought before the responsible administra- 
tive officer is obvious. Where the service is small, a formal 
machinery for securing such an expression of opinion may 
not be necessary. As soon as a service reaches any considerable 
size, however, conditions change and the institution of formal 
machinery for the securing of an authoritative and general 
expression of opinion becomes desirable. 

In general it may be said that the system of personnel 
administration now in force in the federal service is auto- 
cratic. Only here and there has provision been made whereby 
the rank and file may be given an opportunity even to express 
themselves with respect to the conditions under which they 
work, much less to have any voice in determining those con- 
ditions. In the smaller services the absence of any formal pro- 
vision of this kind has not been felt keenly because the in- 
formal contact between the directing and the subordinate per- 
sonnel has served, however imperfectly, a similar purpose. In 
the larger services, however, of which the postal service is the 
outstanding example, the total absence of provision for confer- 
ence between the rank and file and the management which now 
exists is rarely found in the more progressive industrial con- 
cerns of the country. 



562 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Existing Machinery for Employees' Representation. — The 

progress which has been made up to the present time in the 
federal service in the development of official machinery for 
conference is minor. In some of the administrative branches 
there has long been in vogue the institution of the staff con- 
ference, in which all the employees, or, as more commonly 
happens, all above the routine grades, are periodically as- 
sembled by the chief for the more or less free discussion of 
service matters. Aside from these, which can be regarded 
as falling under the head of conference machinery only by 
courtesy, the actual experiments in conference machinery in 
the federal service are so few that they can be specially 
enumerated. 

In the navy yards since shortly after the outbreak of the 
war the mechanical employees have had representation on the 
so-called wage boards. The function of these boards is limited 
to the collection of data concerning the compensation rates 
paid in similar employments in private industry. At this 
writing there has yet displayed itself no tendency towards the 
development of these wage boards into conference committees 
of general jurisdiction. 

Undoubtedly the most complete and thoroughgoing action 
in the direction of creating conference machinery in the federal 
service thus far taken was that taken by the Commanding 
Officer of the Rock Island Arsenal (Colonel Harry B. Jordan), 
on July I, 1 91 9. By an order issued on that date there was 
created in the arsenal a central council composed of three em- 
ployees from each department, this council to select from its 
number five members to meet with the commanding officer and 
four officers appointed by the commanding officer as the rep- 
resentatives of the management, in a so-called Joint Confer- 
ence Committee. In addition the three representatives from 
each department are constituted a departmental committee to 
confer with the head of the department on departmental mat- 
ters. 

From all reports the institution of this system of organized 
machinery for conference between the employees and the man- 



EMPLOYEES* ORGANIZATIONS 563 

agement has had the happiest results not merely in eliminating 
causes of dissatisfaction on the part of the employees but in 
enlisting the employees as a constructive force in the manage- 
ment with resulting increased production. 

Particularly interesting in connection with the Rock Island 
machinery is the decision of the temporary conference com- 
mittee handed down on August 14, 19 19, shortly after the 
act of personal selection of representatives to the council had 
been held: 

The Temporary Conference Committee having been asked 
for a ruling on the eligibility of foremen to represent em- 
ployees on the Central Council is unanimously of the follow- 
ing opinion : 

The Central Council is wholly an organization of employ ■> 
ees, intended to represent the point of view and needs of the 
employees to the management. It would, therefore, mani- 
festly take away from the Council its representative charac- 
ter if members of the managerial force were upon it. Con- 
sequently, it is now definitely agreed between the Temporary 
Conference Committee and the Commanding Officer that no 
person having supervisory power with the power of recom- 
mending employment or discharge shall be eligible to act as 
departmental representative on the Central Council. 

The action taken in the Rock Island Arsenal has not yet 
been extended even to the other arsenals operated by the 
Ordnance Department, nor has the Secretary of War as yet 
seen fit to impose the same plan upon the other industrial 
services under his direction. 

In the non-industrial units there does not yet appear to be 
any significant development of official machinery for confer- 
ence with employees. A comprehensive plan of this kind was 
proposed, indeed, for one of the largest of the non-industrial 
units, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, in 19 19, but owing to 
the instability of the personnel of the organization at that 
time the proposed plan was eventually abandoned. The plan 
was sponsored by the National Federation of Federal Em- 
ployees, and it is worthy of note that it provided for the selec- 
tion of the employee representatives not by the general body of 



564 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

employees but by the War Risk Branch of the Federal Em- 
ployees' Union. It further provided that the President of 
the National Federation of Federal Employees should be ex 
officio Chairman of the employees' delegation on the confer- 
ence committee. It is believed that this proposed plan 
embodies clearly the defects inhering in the system of 
conference machinery based upon unofficial employees' organi- 
zations. 

Attitude of Reclassification Commission in Respect to 
Employees' Representation. — To the Joint Congressional 
Commission on Reclassification of Salaries in the District of 
Columbia belongs the distinction of having been the first 
federal organization to make definite provision for a general 
system of employees' conference machinery. At the outset 
of its work in the spring of 19 19, the Commission ar- 
ranged for the selection of conference committees of employees 
for the several departments and services and also for the more 
important specific classes of employment over the whole service. 
Many of these committees, especially those representing par- 
ticular classes of employment, were active throughout the work 
of the Commission and rendered great assistance. In the 
formation of the central departmental committees, the Commis- 
sion permitted the officers of the National Federation of Fed- 
eral Employees to designate the employee representatives, in- 
stead of resorting to a general election. 

The Reclassification Commission, furthermore, has gone on 
record as definitely favoring a system of "personnel commit- 
tees," by which presumably are meant conference committees. 
The Commission recommends that "one-half of the members 
of each personnel committee shall be selected by and from 
among employees exercising supervisory powers within the 
department or unit thereof and the remaining members shall 
be selected by and from among employees not exercising such 
supervisory powers." ^ The Commission also recommends the 
establishment of a board to be known as the Civil Service 
Advisory Council to be composed of twelve members, six to 

^ Report of the Reclassification Commission, Part I, p. 142. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 565 

be appointed by the President from among the employees above 
the rank of division chief, the remaining six to be selected 
by the employees (two from among the manual employees, two 
from among the clerical employees, and two from among the 
scientific and professional employees).^ 

It will thus be seen that, according to the recommenda- 
tions of the Reclassification Commission, while the "person- 
nel committees" are to be constituted on departmental lines, 
the employees' representation on the "advisory council" is to 
disregard those lines entirely and be based upon the division 
of the employees into groups by character of employment. 
Aside from the fact that the three groups mentioned are by 
no means comprehensive in their relation to the whole service, 
it is difficult to see why the Commission proposes an entirely 
new basis of representation in the council instead of allowing 
the council to be built up upon the departmental personnel com- 
mittees. Particularly does this seem inconsistent in view of 
the function which the Commission assigns to the personnel 
committees. The important part which such committees can 
and should play in the day to day administration in the sev- 
eral departments and subordinate units through the confer- 
ence with the departmental and division officers is apparently 
lost sight of, the recommendation being merely that to the 
extent that the Civil Service Commission "may deem proper, 
it may by rule or regulation provide that any grievance, dis- 
pute, or other matter arising in any department or unit thereof 
shall be conciliated by the personnel committee." But on the 
substantive matters of personnel policy and working conditions, 
the recommendation merely is that "it shall be the duty of 
each personnel committee from time to time to make sugges- 
tions and recommendations to the council." It is a question 
whether the function of such a committee should not be to 
make recommendations of this character first to the depart- 
mental officers concerned, the council being brought into play 

^ Ibid., p. 141. The recommendations also provide for at least one 
of the six members appointed by the President to be a woman and one 
of the two members appointed by the three groups of employees to be 
a woman. 



566 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

only when the departmental officers find themselves unable or 
unwilling to meet the views of the departmental employees. 

An interesting minor provision contained in the recom- 
mendations of the commission is that "members of the council 
shall be allowed, subject to such regulations as the Civil Service 
Commission may prescribe, a reasonable amount of time away 
from the regular duties of their positions without loss of com- 
pensation when necessary in order to enable them to attend 
the meetings of the council or to perform other duties as 
members thereof." The Commission does not make a similar 
recommendation with respect to members of the personnel 
committee, though a similar provision is obviously equally 
called for. 

Machinery for Conference in the British Service. — In the 
civil service of Great Britain conference machinery has reached 
a high degree of development. As in this country the first 
development was in the industrial establishments of the gov- 
ernment. On July I, 19 1 8, the War Cabinet decided to adopt 
in principle the application of the recommendations of the 
Whitley Report, with any necessary adaptations to govern- 
mental industrial establishments where the conditions were 
sufficiently analogous to those existing in outside industries. 
Conference Committees now exist in virtually all the govern- 
ment local industrial establishments, and departmental confer- 
ence committees, known as departmental joint councils also 
exist in each of the departments having such industrial estab- 
lishments under its jurisdiction. There has not as yet been 
developed, however, any conference bodies covering all the 
departments of the government having industrial establish- 
ments. This fact is interesting as emphasizing the fact that 
the primary field for the activity of conference machinery is 
in the local establishments and their subdivisions, and it is 
only after the principle has been effectively applied locally that 
it can be extended with much result to the larger units — the 
department and the service as a whole. 

The standard constitution adopted for the conference ma- 
chinery of the several industrial establishments differs widely 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 567 

from that established at the Rock Island Arsenal, In the 
first place the committees are constituted not merely for each 
department of the establishment but for each shop. In the 
second place it is provided that all these committees "shall con- 
sider only matters of a general nature." ^ Matters that are 
regarded ordinarily as exclusively trade questions, such as 
wages, piece prices, shop rules in relation to union rules, etc., 
fall under the jurisdiction of an entirely distinct committee 
known as the "Trade Committee." The final point of differ- 
ence is that both the shop, department, and works committees 
on the one hand and the trade committees on the other are 
composed of representatives or stewards of the trade unions 
having members employed in the shop. In short, the trade 
union has been accepted as the sole and complete basis for em- 
ployees' representation. 

The emphasis upon the trade as opposed to the organiza- 
tion unit as the basis of employees' representation and of con- 
ference machinery is further emphasized by the fact that 

* The following are specified as being matters "of a general nature." 
(c) The issue and revision of works rules. 

(b) The distribution of working hours ; breaks ; time recording, 

etc. 

(c) The payment of wages (time, form of pay ticket, etc.) ; ex- 

planation of methods of payment. 

(d) The settlement of grievances ; other than those of a spe- 

cific trade character. 

(e) Holiday arrangements. 

(/) Questions of physical welfare (provision of meals, drinking 
water, lavatories and washing accommodation, cloakrooms, 
ventilation, heating and sanitation; accidents, safety ap- 
pliances, firgt aid, ambulance, etc.). 

(g) Questions of promotion, position of foremen, etc. 

(h) Questions of discipline and conduct as between management 
and workpeople (malingering, bullying, time-keeping;; 
publicity in regard to rules ; supervision of notice boards, 
etc.). 

(i) Terms of engagement of workpeople. 

(;") The training of apprentices and young persons. 

(k) Technical library, lectures on the technical and social as- 
pects of industry. 

(/) Suggestions of improvements in method and organization 
of work; the testing of suggestions. 
(w) Investigation of circumstances tending to reduce efficiency 
or in any way to interfere with the satisfactory working 
of the establishments. 
(n) Collections (for clubs, charities, etc.). 
(0) Entertainments and sports. 



/A 



568 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

though no central body covering all the industrial establish- 
ments in the government service has yet been formed there 
are being developed trade councils having jurisdiction over 
all the trade committees of a given trade in all the industrial 
establishments over the whole service. The Ministry of Labour 
and the Treasury are also represented on these trade 
councils.^ 

Separate provision has been made for the organization of 
conference machinery for the non-industrial branches of the 
service. To these the name of "Administrative and Legal 
Departments of the Civil Service" have been applied. It is in- 
teresting to note that here the first body to be created was 
the service-wide body covering all departments. This is 
known as the "National Council for the Administrative and 
Legal Departments of the Civil Service." In addition, de- 
partmental machinery has been set up in no less than 62 de- 
partments according to the latest information. It does not 
appear that the development has proceeded as yet to any level 
below that of the department itself. It is to be recalled, how- 
ever, that in the British government the departments are in 
many cases no more significant units of organization than are 
bureaus in our own system. 

Perhaps the most striking thing about the scheme of or- 
ganization provided for the departmental council is that mem- 
bership in associations of employees instead of employment 
is made the basis for representation. The employee representa- 
tives are to consist "of members of the associations or groups 
of associations having members employed in the department." 
It is provided further than even "where an association has 
members outside as well as inside the department the electors 
for the department shall be the members of the association 
in the department." It is specifically left open to the electors 
so constituted "to use as their representative any member or 
official in the association who is employed in the civil service, 
or if not a person so employed a full-time officer of the asso- 

^ The Ministry of Labour is represented likewise on the departmental 
council. 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 569 

ciation. The election shall in all cases be under the authority 
of the association itself." 

The National Council for the Administrative and Legal 
Departments, promptly upon its organization, appointed several 
committees, of which the most important is the committee on 
the organization of the civil service. This committee rendered 
on February 17, 1920, a brief report dealing with the whole 
organization of the civil service, a most interesting document, 
not only because of the substantive recommendations which 
it makes, but because it supplements the several reports of 
Royal Commissions on the Civil Service. In contrast with 
those reports, which are based upon extensive testimony taken 
by commissioners not themselves in intimate contact with the 
services, this report embodies the result of the actual ex- 
perience of the members of the committee in the Civil Service. 
Particularly interesting are the divergencies of opinion which 
developed between the members of the council representing the 
management and those representing the employees.^ 
Composition of Employees' Committees. — Like most other 
organization phases of the personnel system the organization 
of machinery for conference with the employees should be 
developed along both structural and functional lines; that is 
to say, conference machinery should be provided for all the 
employees in each unit of organization regardless of the char- 
acter of their employment, and supplementary machinery 
should be organized whereby all those following a given em- 
ployment, either over the service as a whole, or in major 
groups of organization units, may also be enabled to confer 
regarding matters especially concerning that employment. The 
size of the primary unit of representation for which machinery 
shall be organized and the several intermediate bodies between 
the primary unit and the final body are matters which cannot 
be arbitrarily or categorically defined but must be determined 
for each branch of the organization in the light of conditions 
there obtaining. 

^ Civil Service National Whitley Council, Report of the Joint Com- 
mittee on the Organization of the Civil Service, 1920, Document No. 3804. 



570 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

When the work of organizing political machinery for con- 
ference is undertaken, especial care must be taken that the 
machinery' shall actually fimction, that is to say, that it shall 
really succeed in securing an authoritative expression of em- 
ployees' opinion. The danger in any system of conference 
machinery organized by the management is that even with the 
best intentions the management may so obtrude itself into 
the picture that unconsciously it dominates the selection of 
the employees' representatives and checks the free expression 
of employee opinion. To prevent such a result from ensuing 
the management should withdraw entirely from the proceedings 
at the earliest possible stage in the organization process. The 
time and place of employee meetings, at which representatives 
are elected and instructed, are not without their influence in 
this connection. The administrator sincerely desirous of ob- 
taining a really frank expression of employee opinion will so 
arrange in these respects that the presence and the influence 
of the management is felt as little as possible if at all. 

Another error to be avoided in the development of confer- 
ence machinery is the inclusion with the subordinate employees 
of the intermediate directing personnel. Invariably this leads 
to constraint on the part of subordinate employees. A com- 
mon form which this error assimies is that of the so-called 
"staff conference'" in which representatives of all the different 
grades of employees meet together in conference w4th the head 
of the organization without any of the groups having had 
any opportunity to meet individually in advance and instruct 
their representatives. 

The Function of Employees' Committees. — The line be- 
tween mere representation of employees on conference com- 
mittees and their actual participation in the making of ad- 
ministrative decisions affecting personnel matters is, in private 
industry, not an easy one to draw. Even though the function 
of the employees' committee be nominally that of advice only, 
there is apt to be manifest an unexpressed but nevertheless 
real threat that if the wishes of the employees are not met a 
strike may result. To this extent any plan for conference with 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 571 

employees involves to a greater or less degree the actual par- 
ticipation by the employees in the making of the decision, the 
degree of participation being determined by the actual strength 
of the employees and their ability to compel acceptance of 
their demands if it is necessary. In the public service the 
same situation hardly exists except perhaps in the industrial 
establishments in which the questions raised by conference 
committees are in a great many cases not peculiar to the gov- 
ernment establishment but are general trade questions affecting 
also those employed in that trade in private industry. In the 
non-industrial branches of the service, however, the chances 
that the employees could or would strike are so slight that, for 
practical purposes, they may be neglected by the administra- 
tive officer. In these branches of the service, therefore, mere 
representation of the employees carries with it no implica- 
tion of actual participation in the management. If it is de- 
sired to award any such participation to the employee, it must 
be done expressly. 

The question of what further share, if any, may be awarded 
to the rank and file in the substantive administration of the 
federal business is one which, in the present state of affairs, 
is so entirely academic and speculative that present discussion 
is hardly warranted. None of the employees' organizations 
appears as yet to have developed even the beginnings of a 
program in this direction. 

Employees' Organizations as Representatives of Em- 
ployees before Management. — The dangers of domination 
by the management that are inherent in every system of 
conference machinery set up by the management itself has 
led some to take the view that the free and authoritative 
expression of employees' opinions can be obtained only when 
the management, instead of itself setting up conference ma- 
chinery by administrative action, enters into conference ar- 
rangements with employees' organizations or unions already 
formed independently of the management. The outstanding 
respect in which an arrangement of this kind is likely to be 
superior to a system set up by the management is 



572 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

that the independent associations or unions of employees 
may have, and usually do have, leaders who are not themselves 
employed in the particular organization unit, or perhaps in the 
service at all, and who, therefore, can meet the executives in 
conference with greater freedom and boldness on behalf of 
the employees. It is believed, however, that this view has 
far more validity in the field of private industry than in the 
federal service. Unless it is to be assumed, as it should not 
be, that the employees are prepared to back up the demands 
which they put forth in conference by a strike, it is clear 
that nothing can be accomplished except through a cooperative 
attitude on the part of the officer in charge. If such a co- 
operative and sympathetic attitude exists, there will be no 
reason ordinarily why the employees' representatives, even 
though they are themselves employed in the organization, 
should have any hesitancy about putting their demands for- 
ward. 

The difificulty in the federal service or in any public service, 
of according to any organization standing outside the service 
the right to speak for the employees is that membership in 
such organization almost invariably involves the payment of 
dues and, quite frequently, the liability to additional assess- 
ment for special purposes from time to time. Almost in- 
variably also, especially when, as in the case of the National 
Federation of Federal Employees and of all the postal unions, 
the organization is affiliated with organized labor generally, 
membership involves also a certain measure of financial, or 
at any rate moral, support of movements and principles which 
have no direct connection with federal employment. For 
these reasons it seems manifestly improper for the federal 
service to require of an employee, as a condition to his ob- 
taining permission to participate in the selection and instruc- 
tion of conference representatives and the like, that he assume 
these wholly external, and from the official standpoint wholly 
irrelevant, financial and moral obligations. 

Even aside from this aspect of the case, however, em- 
ployees' organizations are not in their nature fully efficient 



EMPLOYEES' ORGANIZATIONS 573 

as a medium of conference. In all such organizations there 
is an insistent pressure at all times to build up the organiza- 
tion. The result of this is to lay emphasis on those factors 
and forces which are common to the service as a whole and 
to neglect the peculiar and special conditions obtaining in the 
several branches and subordinate organization units. It is 
precisely in these minor divisions of the service, however, 
that conference machinery most needs to be consistently de- 
veloped. 

There is another danger here, moreover, that needs to 
be guarded against fully as carefully as the danger of official 
interference where the system of selection is official. This is 
the danger that the control of the employees' organizations 
will tend to concentrate itself in the hands of professional 
union officers. When a union is developed without official 
assistance and indeed, as so often happens, in defiance of the 
wishes of the management, there often comes to the fore in 
union circles a type of aggressive individual who sees in the 
organization an opportunity for self-aggrandizement which 
would not be open. to him in the service itself. Individuals of 
this type, however necessary they may be in the development 
of the organization during its formative period, are not neces- 
sarily or even generally the most desirable type of leader or 
representative. When employee representation is based upon 
membership in the organization rather than merely upon em- 
ployment itself, the tendency is, however, for this type of 
leadership to persist. 

Up to the present time the employees' organizations, how- 
ever, have furnished the chief medium of conference between 
employees and management in the federal service. In the 
industrial establishments, notably in the arsenals and navy 
yards, it has long been customary for the management to recog- 
nize the officers of the several trades unions to which the vari- 
ous classes of employees belong as speaking for the employees. 
In the Navy Department, this recognition has gone so far as to 
permit the officers of the several national trade unions affected 
to appear before the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to 



574 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

prosecute appeals from the wage scales recommended by the 
departmental wage board. 

For many years after the formation of the postal organiza- 
tions it was customary for their national officers to confer 
with the departmental officers at Washington, but this condition 
was permitted by the departmental officers to continue only as 
long as the organization remained under the tutelage of the 
department, advocating, at least publicly, no measures with 
which the department did not accord. About 19 12 the rela- 
tions between the department and some of the postal organiza- 
tions became strained; and, with the increasing militancy of 
those organizations, and the increasing hostility to them on 
the part of the Postmaster General and his assistants, it was 
not many months before amicable relations between the de- 
partment and the unions ceased entirely. From this it was a 
short step to the position taken by Postmaster General Burleson 
of refusing to meet the representatives of the unions. Since 
about 19 1 6 the contact of the postal organizations with the 
department has been limited to the presentation of grievances. 
Outside the postal service, the organization of employees 
not in the recognized trades has developed only within the 
last few years. The National Federation of Federal Em- 
ployees, however, has had remarkable success in securing 
recognition from the departmental authorities of its right 
to speak for the employees. On a number of occasions its 
national officers have conferred with the heads of services 
and departments. In one case — that of the Picatinny Arsenal 
— it effected an agreement with the commanding officer to 
treat the president of the local union as the employees' rep- 
resentative for the consideration of all grievances. Perhaps 
the most striking success of the Federation in receiving ac- 
ceptance as the employees' representative, however, was that 
accorded it by the Reclassification Commission, which au- 
thorized the President of the Federation to nominate a mem- 
ber of the organization from each department to represent 
the employees on the central departmental cooperating com- 
mittees set up by the Commission. 



APPENDIX 

TABLE I 

Approximate Number of Civil Employees in the Executive and 
Administrative Services of the Federal Government 

July i, 1919* 

The White House 47 

Department of State 
Departmental 

Secretary's Office 7 

Office of Under Secretary of State 23 

Assistant Secretary's Office 6 

Second Assistant Secretary's Office 9 

Third Assistant Secretary's Office 10 

Solicitor's Office 38 

Office of the Director of the Consular Service 4 

Chief Clerk's Office 65 

Diplomatic Bureau 35 

Consular Bureau 35 

Division of Latin- American Affairs 6 

Division of Western European Affairs 16 

Division of Mexican Affairs 7 

Division of Far Eastern Affairs 7 

Division of Near Eastern Affairs 6 

Division of Foreign Intelligence 16 

Division of Russian Affairs 6 

Division of Passport Control 174 

Bureau of Appointments 10 

Bureau of Indexes and Archives 181 

Bureau of Accounts 20 

Bureau of Rolls and Library 11 

Translators 3 

Office of Foreign Trade Adviser 51 

Office of Adviser on Commercial Treaties 3 

hsLW Editor's Office 2 

War Trade Board Section 200 

Total : Departmental 951 

^ OfHcial Register of the United States, 1919. 

575 



576 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Department of State — Continued 
Foreign Service 

Diplomatic Service (approximate) , 132 

Consular Service (approximate) 936 

Total: Foreign Service (approximate) 1,068 



Total: Department of State (approximate) 2,019 

Treasury Department 
Departmental 

Secretary's Office 33 

Division of Appointments 22 

Auditor for the Interior Department 89 

Auditor for the Navy Department 232 

Auditor for the Post Office Department 551 

Auditor for the State and Other Departments 106 

Auditor for the Treasury Department 192 

Auditor for the War Department 966 

Division of Bookkeeping and Warrants 51 

Chief Clerk's Office 913 

Coast Guard 56 

Comptroller of the Currency ^ 165 

Comptroller of the Treasury 63 

Division of Customs 43 

Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 4,088 

Federal Farm Loan Bureau 71 

Division of Loans and Currency 2,204 

Bureau of the Mint 13 

Public Health Service 61 

Register of the Treasury 554 

Secret Service Division 10 

Office of the Supervising Architect 215 

Office of the Treasurer of the United States 1,095 

Bureau of War Risk Insurance ^11,268 

Bureau of Engraving and Printing 6,779 

War Savings Division 102 

Disbursing Clerk 17 

Division of Mails and Files ,• 9 

Division of Printing and Stationery '. 28 

Division of Public Moneys 23 

Section of Surety Bonds 7 

Secretary's Bond Roll 284 

Total : Departmental 30,310 

*As returned October 15, 1919. 



APPENDIX 577 

Treasury Department — Continued 
Field Service 

Customs Service (approximate) 6,500 

Internal Revenue Service (approximate) ....; 9,967 

Public Health Service (approximate) 2,500 

Coast Guard Service (approximate) 5,023 

Subtreasury Service 320 

Custodian-Janitor Service (approximate) 5,500 

Public Building Service (approximate) 120 

Mint and Assay Service (approximate) 700 

National Bank Examiners, Receivers, Attorneys, etc., (ap- 
proximate) r 700 

Total : Field Service 31, 330 

Total : Treasury Department (approximate) 61,640 

Department of Justice 

Office of the Attorney General (including Bureau of 

Investigation) 1,020 

Special assistant attorneys 200 

Offices of United States attorneys 510 

Office of United States marshals 800 

Customs Division 20 

National Training School for Boys 62 

Penitentiaries 310 

United States court officials and employees (including 
about 200 justices, judges, officials, and employees of 
courts in the District of Columbia, connected with or 
under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice) 

( approximate ) 2,800 



Total: Department of Justice (approximate) .... 5,722 

War Department 
Departmental 

Office of the Secretary of War 397 

Office of the Chief of Staff (including War College) ,. 444 

The Adjutant General's Office 4,532 

Office of the Chief of Coast Artillery 30 

Militia Bureau 37 

• Office of the Inspector General 34 

Office of the Judge Advocate General 125 

. Office of the Quartermaster General, Director of Pur- 
chase and Storage 1,9^8 

Construction Division I,I97 

Office of the Chief of the Motor Transport Corps 442 

Office of the Surgeon General 603 



578 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

War Department — Continued 
Departmental — Continued 

Office of the Chief of Engineers 192 

Office of the Chief of Ordnance i>537 

Office of the Chief Signal Officer 209 

Office of the Director of Air Service i,474 

Bureau of Insular Affairs 63 

Office of the Director of the Chemical Warfare Service 150 

War Credits Board 3 

Total : Departmental ^3,3^7 

Field Service 

Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Service S9>7o6 

Transportation Service 361 

Finance Service 2,1 10 

Real Estate Service 112 

Medical Department 3>69i 

Engineer Department 24,030 

Ordnance Department 44.964 

Signal Service 841 

Air Service 7,223 

Motor Transport Corps 17,461 

Chemical Warfare Service 926 

Construction Division 19,670 

Tank Corps 4 

Military Headquarters 68 

Board of Ordnance and Fortification I 

United States Military Academy 183 

National Military Park Commissions 166 

Alaska Road Commission 349 

Lincoln Farm Commission 3 

Total : Field Service 181,869 



Total: War Department (as of August i, 1919) . . 195,256 



Navy Department 
Departmental - ) 

Office of the Secretary 106 

Office of the Solicitor 16 

Office of Naval Records and Library 17 

Office of Judge Advocate General 22 

Office of Naval Intelligence 18 

Hydrographic Office 142 

Naval Observatory 46 

Nautical Almanac Office 15 



APPENDIX 579 

Navy Department — Continued 
Departmental — Continued 

Bureau of Navigation 145 

Bureau of Steam Engineering 214 

Bureau of Construction and Repair 322 

Bureau of Ordnance 84 

Bureau of Supplies and Accounts 448 

Bureau of Medicine and Surgery 34 

Bureau of Yards and Docks 257 

Office of Chief of Naval Operations 71 

Office of General Board 7 

Office of Board of Inspection and Survey 15 

Office of Compensation Board 13 

Office of Naval Examining Board 4 

Office of Naval Consulting Board i 

Navy Allotment Office 29 

Navy Disbursing Office 117 

Office of Director of Naval Communications 23 

Total : Departmental 2,166 

Field Service 

Navy yards and shore stations (approximate) 105,622 

Total : Navy Department (approximate) 107,788 

Post Office Department 

Office of the Postmaster General 

Department i>336 

Post office inspectors 422 

Clerks at headquarters, Division of Post Office Inspectors 100 

Total : Office of the Postmaster General 1,858 

Office of the First Assistant Postmaster General 

Department ^^ 

Postmasters : 

First-class 665 

Second-class 2,539 

Third-class 7,621 

Fourth-class 42,259 

Assistant Postmasters 2,648 

Clerks 

First and second class offices 44,681 

Third-class offices (estimated) 13,000 

Fourth-class offices (estimated) 42,259 



58o ' THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Post Office Department — Continued 

Office of the First Assistant Postmaster General — Continued 

In charge of contract stations 5,170 

City letter carriers 35,024 

Watchmen, messengers, laborers, printers, etc 1,931 

Screen-wagon contractors 261 

Mail messengers 8,589 

Motor-vehicle employees 1,809 

Total : Office of the First Assistant Postmaster Gen- . 

eral 208,468 

Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster General 

Department 114 

Railway Mail Service : 

Officers : 142 

Railway postal clerks 17,916 

Substitute railway postal clerks 2,770 

Steamboat contractors 262 

Air mail employees 164 

Star route contractors in Alaska 40 

Total: Office of the Second Assistant Postmaster 

General 21,408 

Office of the Third Assistant Postmaster General 

Department 15 

Stamped-envelope agency 1 1 

Total : Office of the Third Assistant Postmaster 

General 26 

/ 

Office of the Fotjirth Assistant Postmaster General 

Department 7 

Equipment shops 274 

Shipment of supplies 17 

Rural carriers 43,i 1 1 

Village carriers 845 

Motor-truck drivers and mechanics 50 

Traveling mechanicians 3 

Star route contractors 10,773 

Total : Office of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster 

General S5,o8o 

Total : Post Office Department 286,840 



APPENDIX 581 

Department of the Interior 

Office of the Secretary 577 

Office of the Solicitor 45 

General Land Office and Land Service 1,381 

Office of Indian Affairs and Indian Service (approxi- 
mate) 5,835 

Pension Office 904 

Patent Office 951 

Bureau of Education and Alaska Service 274 

Geological Survey 930 

Reclamation Service 3,305 

Bureau of Mines 774 

Office of Superintendent of Capitol Building and Grounds 306 

Alaskan Engineering Commission (approximate) 2,064 

National Park Service, and Parks and Reservations .... 247 

St. Elizabeth's Hospital 726 

Freedmen's Hospital iii 

Howard University 65 

Columbia Institution for the Deaf 67 

Office of Recorder of Deeds 42 

Office of Register of Wills 34 

Territorial — Alaska (19) and Hawaii (3) 22 

Total : Department of the Interior 18,660 



Department of Agriculture 

Office of the Secretary 474 

Office of Farm Management 148 

Weather Bureau 952 

Bureau of Animal Industry 4,763 

Bureau of Plant Industry i,73S 

Forest Service 2,835 

Bureau of Chemistry 683 

Bureau of Soils 164 

Bureau of Entomology 425 

Bureau of Biological Survey 160 

Division of Publications 178 

Bureau of Crop Estimates 214 

States Relations Service 420 

Library 34 

Bureau of Public Roads 613 

Division of Accounts and Disbursements 36 

Insecticide and Fungicide Board 55 

Federal Horticultural Board 122 

Bureau of Markets 1,567 

Temporary Employees 407 



582 ■ THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Department of Agriculture — Continued 

Miscellaneous (Includes collaborators, cooperative 

agents, special meteorological observers, etc.) 6,987 

Total : Department of Agriculture 22,972 

Department of Commerce 

Office of the Secretary 183 

Bureau of the Census i>348 

Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce 305 

Bureau of Standards 996 

Bureau of Fisheries 428 

Bureau of Lighthouses 5>8i8 

Coast and Geodetic Survey 942 

Bureau of Navigation 204 

Steamboat-Inspection Service 408 

Total : Department of Commerce 10,632 

Department of Labor 

Office of the Secretary 113 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 214 

Bureau of Immigration 65 

Immigration Service at large 1,326 

Division of Information 6 

Contract Labor 44 

Children's Bureau 81 

Children's Bureau at large 126 

Bureau of Naturalization 75 

Naturalization Service at large 156 

United States Employment Service 186 

United States Employment Service at large 1,269 

Women in Industry 14 

Total : Department of Labor 3,675 

Interstate Commerce Commission 

Offices of the Commissioners > 28 

Office of the Secretary 22 

Car Service • • . • 2 

Carriers' Accounts 86 

Office of the Chief Examiner 54 

Correspondence and Claims 27 

Disbursements and Accounts 18 

Dockets 23 

Documents 6 

Fifteenth Section Board 20 



APPENDIX 583 

Interstate Commerce Commission — Continued 

Fourth Section Board 4 

Indices 6 

Inquiry , 19 

Law 6 

Library 3 

Locomotive Inspection y6 

Mails and Files 44 

Printing Section 2 

Safety 75 

Statistics 85 

Stenography 40 

Supplies 70 

Tariffs 118 

Valuation 1,380 

Total : Interstate Commerce Commission 2,214 

Civil Service Commission 

Office of the Commission 11 

Chief Examiner's Office 3 

Application Division 54 

Appointment Division 96 

Examining Division 68 

Custodian Service 25 

Field Force 49 

Total : Civil Service Commission 306 

I : 

Federal Reserve Board 

Office of members of board 9 

Office of the Secretary 31 

Office of Counsel 9 

Division of Audit and Examination 26 

Division of Statistics 32 

Division of Analysis and Research 10 

Division of Architecture I 

Division of Issue 49 

Total : Federal Reserve Board 167 

Federal Trade Commission 

Office of Commissioners 9 

Administrative Department loi 

Economic Department 162 

Legal Department 63 

Total : Federal Trade Commission 335 



584 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

United States Shipping Board (including Emergency Fleet 
Corporation) 

Office of the Shipping Board 933 

Emergency Fleet Corporation * 6,458 

Division of Operations 1,732 

Division of the Comptroller 1,948 

Total: United States Shipping Board (including 
Emergency Fleet Corporation) 11,071 



The Panama Canal 

Washington Office 107 

United States, outside District of Columbia 31 



In the Canal Zone (estimated) : 

Silver Gold 
Department Force Force 

Operation and maintenance 8,880 1,720 10,600 

Supply 4,443 382 4,825 

Accounting 14 193 207 

Health 1,038 204 1,242 

Executive 198 384 582 

Total 14,573 2,883 17,456 

Total : The Panama Canal I7,594 

Government Printing Office 

Office of the Public Printer i 

Office of the Deputy Public Printer 3 

Office of the Chief Clerk 27 

Office of the Purchasing Agent 17 

Office of the Accountant 54 

Computing Division 33 

Emergency Hospital Section 3 

Office of the Superintendent of Documents 213 

Office of the Superintendent of Work 49 

Office of the Foreman of Printing 14 

Delivery Section 41 

White House detail 6 

Proof Section 304 

Linotype Section 338 

Monotype Section 500 

Hand Section 222 

Job Section 116 

a Includes only employees of administrative and executive divisions, 
and excludes mechanics and other employees of the various shipyards. 



APPENDIX 585 

Government Printing Office — Continued 

Money-order Section 16 

Foundry Section 118 

Plate-vault Section 16 

Library of Congress Branch Printing Section 25 

Press Division 626 

Postal-card Section 36 

Office of Foreman of Building 25 

Forwarding and Finishing Section 401 

Pamphlet-binding Section 659 

Ruling and Sewing Section 293 

Library of Congress Branch Binding Section 73 

Office of Superintendent of Building 35 

Watch-force Section 67 

Engineer's Section 63 

Electrical Section 79 

Machine-shop Section 35 

Carpenter and Paint Shop Section 25 

Sanitary Section 77 

Stores Division 136 

Congressional Record 7 

• Metal Section 11 

Legislative detail 9 

Total : Government Printing Office 4)773 

Smithsonian Institution 

National Museum 327 

International Exchanges 16 

Bureau of American Ethnology 17 

National Zoological Park 59 

Astrophysical Observatory 8 

International Catalogue of Scientific Literature 6 

Total : Smithsonian Institution 433 



Alien Property Custodian 

Office of Alien Property Custodian 3 

Office of Managing Director .^ 2 

Bureau of Administration 99 

Bureau of Investigation 15 

Bureau of Trusts 121 

Bureau of Law ^ 43 

Bureau of Sales 45 

Total : Alien Property Custodian 328 



586 THE FEDERAL SERVICE 

Other Independent Establishments, Boards, Commissions, etc. 

Bureau of Efficiency 24 

United States Tariff Commission 54 

Employees' Compensation Commission 49 

Federal Board for Vocational Education 2,441 

Council of National Defense 91 

Office of the Superintendent of the State, War, and 

Navy Building 1,806 

Miscellaneous boards, commissions, etc. (Board of 
Mediation and Conciliation, International (Canadian) 
Boundary Commission, International High Commission 
— United States Section, International Joint Commis- 
sion of the United States and Canada, Commission of 
Fine Arts, Arlington Memorial Amphitheater Commis- 
sion, Lincoln Memorial Commission, Commission on 
Memorial to Women of the Civil War, and United 

States Botanic Garden) "-isS 

Total: Other Independent Establishments, Boards, 

Commissions, etc 4*623 

Grand Total: Executive and Administrative Serv- 
ices (approximate) 757*095 

^ Does not include officers and members who serve without compensa- 
tion. 

TABLE II 

Extent of the Classified Service in Greater New York ^ 



Service 


Supervi- 
sory, tech- 
nical 
and cler- 
ical 


Sub- 
clerical 


Trades 


Total 


Assay Office 


32 

50 

151 

2 

2 

3 
I 
2 


12 

7 
I 

14 
5 
13 
23 
13 
9 


42 

33 
7 

17 

19 
6 

II 


86 


Board of General Appraisers . . . 

Bureau of Animal Industry 

Custodian Service: 

Custom house building 

Barge office 


57 
152 

49 
12 


Appraisers stores 

Courthouse and post office . . 
New post office building .... 
Brooklyn post office 


32 

45 
20 
22 


Total: Custodian Service . 


10 


77 


93 


180 




1 







^ Thirtieth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission 
(1913), p. 173. 



APPENDIX 



587 



Extent of the Classified Service in 
New York — Continued 



Greater 



Customs Service: 

Collector's ofifice 


1,164 
438 
154 
105 


390 
321 

15 
10 


5 
5 


1,559 
764 
169 
IIS 


Appraiser's 


Naval Office 


Surveyor's Office 




Total : Customs Service . . . 


1,861 


736 


10 
33 

12 
20 


2,607 


Depot Quartermaster, United States 
Army 


87 

25 

46 

45' 

39 


68 

5 

7 
4 
I 


188 


United States attorney's office, 
southern district, New York .... 
United States Engineer's Office: 
First district 


30 
6s 


Second district 


69 


Third district 


40 






Total: United States Engi- 
neer's Office 


130 


12 


32 


174 




Headquarters, Eastern Depart- 
ment, United States Army .... 
Immigration Service 


26 

249 

4 

2 
6 

7 


127 
I 

26 
7 


60 


26 
436 


Indian warehouse 


Internal Revenue Service: 


2 


Second district 


32 


Third district 


14 






Total : Internal Revenue 
Service 


15 


33 




48 


Lighthouse Service, third district 
Medical Supply Depot 


37 
12 

449 

10 

11,021 

II 

48 
3 

351 

14 
34 
88 
6 
10 


II 

13 
86 

7 

152 

II 

2 

27 
2 


213 

3,334 
26 
10 

17 

13 


261 

25 

3,869 

43 

11,031 

163 

76 
3 

351 


Navy Yard 


New York Arsenal 


Post Office Service 


Public Health Service 


Quartermaster, United States 
Army, Eastern Department . . . 

Radio Service, Inspector's Office . 

Railway Mail Service, Second Di- 
vision 


Signal Office, United States Army, 
Eastern Department 


16 


Steamboat Inspection Service 

United States Subtreasury 

Superintendent of Public Buildings 
United States Weather Bureau . . 


34 

115 

19 

12 


Grand Total 


14,734 


1,390 


3,883 


20,007 





588 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 
TABLE Til 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allov^ance, April 30, 1919 * 



Service and Class (vi^here number in 
class is 100 or more) 



All Services 

Services involving Clerical, Office, or 
Commercial Work 

1. Total for Classes having 100 or 

more in the Administrative 
and Supervisory Clerical 
Service 

Head Clerk (Group) 

Junior Clerical Adminis- 
trator (Group) 

2. Total for Classes having 100 or 

more in the Department 
Publications and Informa- 
tion Service 



Editorial Assistant . 
Junior Information 

(Group) 

Information Aid . . . , 



Clerk 



3, Total for Classes having 100 or 
more in the Fiscal and 
Accounting Service 

Senior Accountant 

Under Accounting Clerk . . . 

Junior Accounting Clerk . , . 

Senior Accounting Clerk . . . 

Principal Accounting Clerk. 

Junior Audit Clerk 

Senior Audit Clerk 

Income Tax Audit Clerk . . . 

Junior Income Tax Account- 
ant 

Associate Income Tax Ac- 
countant 






<u 
29,409 




78,133 


48,628 


54,115 


14,610 


39,431 


371 


349 
205 

144 
115 


21 


221 
150 

383 
105 

104 
174 

6,042 


16 

5 

268 


38 

21 
56 

3,149 


67 

83 
118 

2,889 


128 

1,361 
2,130 

647 
231 

482 

243 
188 

267 
365 


128 
302 
817 

509 
216 
284 
192 
109 

257 
335 


1,056 

1,312 

138 

15 
198 

51 
79 

10 
30 



* From unpublished data in the files of the Reclassification Commission. 



APPENDIX 



589 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 



4. Total for Classes having 100 or j 
more in the Mail, File, and 
Record Service 

Junior Recorder 

Senior Recorder 

Principal Recorder 

Under File Clerk 

Junior File and Record Clerk 
Senior File and Record 

Clerk (Group) 

Principal File and Record 

Clerk (Group) 

Head File and Record Clerk 

(Group) 

Junior Mail Routing Clerk . 
Senior Mail Routing Clerk . 
Principal Mail Routing Clerk 

(Group) 

Junior Mail Despatching 

Clerk 

Senior Mail Despatching 

Clerk 

5. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Messenger 
Service 

Junior Messenger 

Senior Messenger 

Principal Messenger 

6. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Miscellaneous 
Clerical Service 

Under Clerk 

Junior Clerk 

Senior Clerk 

Principal Clerk (Group) . . 

Under Counter 

Senior Counter 

Principal Counter 

Junior Verifier 

Senior Verifier 



17742 



157 

1,113 

106 

441 

10,841 

2,741 
522 

100 

485 
682 

138 

202 

214 



3,392 



1,136 

1,951 

305 



5,546 



594 
1,406 

713 
158 
383 
662 

155 
894 
581 



3,519 



20 

207 

66 

186 

1,674 

600 
273 

85 
115 
126 

60 

51 

56 

2,873 



856 

1,721 

296 



1,120 

112 
321 
390 
143 

15 
10 

77 
52 



14,200 



137 

904 

40 

253 

9,155 

2,137 
248 

14 
369 
556 

78 

151 

158 

503 



274 
222 

7 



4,418 



482 
1,081 
322 
15 
383 
647 
144 

815 
529 



23 



2 

12 

4 
I 

I 
I 



16 



590 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 19 19 — Continued 



7. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Office Appli- 
ance Operating Service . 


1,572 


290 


1,278 


4 


Address Plate Cutter . . 

Address Plate Verifier 

Address Plate File Clerk . . 

Principal Address Machine 

Clerk 


235 
135 
232 

170 
116 
122 
247 

315 

951 
256 

156 
260 

279 

154 


8 

2 

16 

54 
93 
78 
30 

9 

195 
56 

72 

22 

45 

131 


226 

133 
216 

116 

21 

44 
217 

305 

756 
200 

84 
238 

234 
23 


I 


Mimeograph Operator ..... 

Multigraph Operator 

Adding Machine Operator . 
Calculating Machine Oper- 
ator 


2 
I 


8. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Personnel 
Service • 




Junior Personnel Clerk .... 
Senior Personnel Clerk 

(Group) 

Under Time and Pay Roll 

Clerk 

Junior Time and Pay Roll 

Clerk 

g. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Specialized 

Business Service 




Senior Transportation Rate 

Clerk 

10. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Supply and 
Equipment Service 


154 

2,171 

290 
121 

169 
612 
169 


131 
994 


23 

i,i77 




Junior Property Accounts 
Examiner 

Junior Purchasing Office 
Clerk 

Junior Publications Dis- 
tributor 


57 

35 

81 

127 

119 


233 
86 
88 

485 
50 




Junior Stores Clerk (Mili- 
tary and Naval) 

Senior Stores Clerk (Mili- 
tary and Naval) 





APPENDIX 



591 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 

Under Supplies Clerk . . 
Junior Supplies Clerk . . . 
Senior Supplies Clerk . . 



II. 



Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Telephone and 
Telegraph Operating Serv- 



ice 



12. 



Junior Telephone Operator . 

Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Typing, 
Stenographic, Correspond- 
ence and Secretarial Serv- 



ice 



Junior Correspondence Clerk 
Senior Correspondence Clerk 

(Group) 

Stenographer Secretary .... 
Junior Stenographer ...... 

Senior Stenographer 

Principal Stenographer .... 
Junior Stenographer-clerk . 
Senior Stenographer-clerk . 

Under Typist 

Junior Typist 

Senior Typist 

Under Typist-clerk 

Junior Typist-clerk 

Services Involving the Skilled Trades, 
Manual Labor, Public 
Safety, or Related Work . 

I. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Custodial and 
Janitor Service 

Guard 

Cleaners 

Charwoman 

School Janitor 



2. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Domestic 

Service 

Rag Washer 



125 


113 


12 


481 


292 


189 


204 


170 


34 


213 


12 


200 


213 


12 


200 


15,578 


1,863 


13,698 


1,563 


331 


1,231 


315 


227 


87 


279 


61 


217 


3,639 


202 


3,429 


737 


91 


646 


236 


71 


165 


2,282 


210 


2,072 


1,155 


196 


958 


3,256 


252 


3,000 


733 


77 


656 


200 


22 


178 


800 


79 


720 


383 


44 


339 


15,860 


11,215 


4,635 


3,376 
1,585 


2,759 


613 


1,585 




1,079 


1,061 


14 


578 


— 


578 


134 


113 


21 


113 


113 




"3 


113 





17 

I 

I 
I 
8 



10 



592 



THE FEDERAL" SERVICE 



Civil Employees in the District ot Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 19 19 — Continued 



Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Farm, Garden, 
and Park Maintenance 
Service 



Park Laborer 



4. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Fire Service . 

Subprivate (Fire Depart- 
ment) 

Senior Private (Fire De- 
partment) 

5. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Police and 
Criminal Investigation 
Service 

Subprivate (Police Depart- 
ment) 

Senior Private (Police De- 
partment) 



6. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Printing 
Trades Service 



Bindery Worker 

Bookbinder 

Plate Printers' Assistant . . . 

Steel and Copper Plate 
Printers 

Press Feeder 

Flatbed Pressman 

Compositor 

Maker-up 

Linotype Operator 

Monotype Keyboard Oper- 
ator 

Proofreader 

Helper— G.P.O 

Machine Operator (Light) . 

Hydraulic and Plater Press 
Packer 

Money and Tissue Separator 

Paper Security Examiner . 



135 



135 
455 



224 
231 

522 

104 
418 

6,342 



430 

386 

1,233 

907 
2gi 

247 
366 \ 
125 I 
144 

119 
238 

131 

542 

133 
235 
815 



135 



135 
455 



224 
231 

522 



104 
418 

2,626 



3 
386 

3 

907 

I 

247 

353 
125 
140 

106 
220 

131 
2 



3713 



427 
1,227 

290 

13 
4 

13 
I 

540 

132 

235 
814 



APPENDIX 



593 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allowance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 



7. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Skilled Trades 
and Labor Service 


4,917 


4,605 


309 


3 


Chauffeur 

General Carpenter 

Electrician 

Elevator Operator 

Laborer 

Freight Handler 

Mail Bag Sewer 

Mailer and Wrapper 

Helper Mechanical Trades . 

Packer , 

Teamster 

Shop Porter 

Laboratory Helper 

Services Involving Scientific, Tech- 
nical, Professional, or 
Subsidiary Work 


450 
302 
167 
256 
1,069 
493 
113 
141 

407 
132 

175 
1,112 

100 

8,158 


450 

302 

167 

181 

1,069 

493 

3 

87 

407 

107 

175 

1,084 

80 

3,584 


75 

no 

54 

25 

27 
18 

4,562 


I 
2 

12 


I. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Arts Service . 


136 


108 


28 




Photographic Laboratory 
Aid 

2. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Educational 
Service 


136 

1,744 


108 

139 

29 

6 

14 

90 

495 


28 
1,598 


7 






Kindergartner 

Teacher, Elementary Schools 

Special Teacher, Elemen- 
tary School (Group) 

Teaching Principal, Ele- 
mentary Schools 

Teacher, High School 
(Group) 

3. Total for classes having 100 or 
more in the Engineering 
Service 


137 
1,052 

127 

128 

300 
506 


137 
1,020 

120 

114 

207 

II 


3 
I 

3 


Junior Civil Engineer 

Mechanical Engineering 

Draftsman 

Junior Mechanical Engineer 


137 

113 
114 


137 

103 
113 


10 

I 





594 



THE FEDERAL SERVICE 



Civil Employees in the District of Columbia Working Full 
Time and Receiving No Allow^ance, April 30, 1919 — Continued 



Assistant Mechanical Engi- 
neer 

4. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Law and Ex- 
aminer Service 

Junior Attorney 

Assistant Attorney (Group) 

Attorney ( Group ) 

Senior Attorney (Group) . . 

Under Examiner 

Junior Examiner (Group) . 
Senior Examiner (Group) . 
Principal Examiner (Group) 

5. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Library Serv- 
ice 

Junior Library Assistant . . 
Library Assistant 

6. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Physical Sci- 
ence Service 

Junior Chemist 

Associate Chemist 

7. Total for classes having 100 or 

more in the Statistical 
Service 

Card Punch Operator 

Mechanical Tabulation Coder 

Special Mechanical Tabula- 
tion Coder 

Junior Statistical Clerk .... 

Senior Statistical Clerk 
(Group) 

Principal Statistical Clerk 
(Group) 



142 


142 




2,604 


1,800 


801 


117 


113 


4 


278 


263 


15 


216 


214 


2 


177 


177 




627 


108 


518 


559 


402 


156 


442 


342 


99 


188 


181 


7 


305 


70 
38 


234 


194 


155 


III 


32 


79 


2^5 


200 
78 


24 


101 


22 


124 


122 


2 


2,638 


772 


1,866 


301 


20 


281 


152 


13 


139 


104 


I 


103 


929 


169 


760 


755 


287 


468 


397 


282 


115 



INDEX 



Absence, leaves of, 521-525; laws 
providing-, 522 ; Reclassifica- 
tion Commission recommenda- 
tions, 524; ruling of Comp- 
troller of Treasury, 522; sick 
leave, 523. 

Accounting positions, promotions 
in, 251-252. 

Administration of personnel, 147- 
148; and classification, 207. 

Administrative discretion, 322- 

323- . 
Administrative review, 502. 
Advancement, opportunity for, in 

the public service, 511-517. 
Advisory Council of Civil Service 

recommended, 564-565. 
Age limits for recruitment, 353- 

355- . 

Allocation of positions, 206. 

Ambassadors and other public 
ministers, 139-142; and the 
permanent personnel, 141-142. 

American Federation of Labor, 
166, 546, 550, 556; on the re- 
striction of political activities 
of federal employees, 166. 

American Political Science Asso- 
ciation, on education for the 
civil service, 351. 

Annual leave, 521-525. 

Appeals for re-rating of candi- 
dates, 406. 

Appointing power, 28-32. 

Appointment and promotion in 
the civil service, Attorney-Gen- 
eral on, 108-109; probationary, 
444-446; rule for, 444. 

Appointment in selection of civil 
service employees, 293-294, 
381. 

Appointments, presidential, 102. 

Apportioned positions, certifica- 
tion of, 413-428; Attorney- 
General on, 421 ; Civil Service 



Commission on, 421-424, 427; 
inefficiency of, 415, 425-428; 
positions waived from appoint- 
ment, 414; procedure in, 416- 
421; rules providing, 413-414; 
Secretary of Commerce and 
Labor on, 426. 

Appraisal of positions, 206. 

Appropriation technique and 
classification, 208-213. 

Appropriations for salaries, 185- 
193; lump sum, 185-193. 

Arrangement of classes, 202-203. 

Area of selection of personnel 
within the service, 264-292. 

Assembled examinations, 358- 
361. 

Assistant secretaries and analo- 
gous officers, 98-99; and pro- 
motion within the service, 99. 

Attorney-General on appoint- 
ment and promotion in the civil 
service, 108-109. 

Auditors of the Departments, 
III. 



Bank examiner, chief national, 

132-133- 
Blind alleys in promotion, 246; 

causes of, 246-248. 
Boards and commissions, 116- 

117; employees of, 116-117; 

local boards, 386. 
Bonaparte, Charles J., on the 

merit system as applied in the 

Department of Justice, 115- 

116. 
British Civil Service, conference 

machinery in, 566-567. 
British Civil Service system, and 

the American conditions, 255- 

258. 
British personnel system, 254- 

255; and American conditions, 



595 



596 



INDEX 



255-258; and the universities, 

255- 

Bryan, William Jennings, on 
tenure in office, 87. 

Budget, bureau of, and classifi- 
cation, 207, 212-213. 



Campaign contribution, prohibi- 
tion of forced, 155-158; inves- 
tigation of, by the Civil Serv- 
ice Commission, 156-158. 

Central personnel administration, 
538-543; dual character of, 
538; recruitment and regula- 
tion, 538-543- 

Certification, administration of, 
435-439; apportioned positions, 
413-428; labors, method for, 
467 ; local commissioners, rule 
of, 433; objections to a candi- 
date, 430; objections to certifi- 
cation, 432; politics and, 432, 
434 ; Postmaster-General on, 
434-435; results of, 435-440; 
restriction of, 428-429; rural 
carriers and, 432; theory of, 
432; "three name" rule, 429- 
440. 

Chief Examiner of the Civil 
Service Commission, 111-113. 

Civil Service, activities in pro- 
motion, 239-246; administration 
of personnel in, 147-148; ad- 
vancement, opportunity for, 
511-517; advisory council rec- 
ommended, 564-566; area of 
selection from, attitude of the 
Civil Service Commission on, 
271-274; appointing power, 28- 
32; appointment and promotion 
in, 108-109; Attorney-General 
on appointment, 108-109; at- 
tractions of, 508-510; boards, 
local, 386; campaign contribu- 
tions, 156-158; classification of 
positions in, 6-17; control of, 
176-177; distribution, depart- 
mental, 4; distribution, geo- 
graphical, 4-6; distribution, nu- 
merical, 8-1 1 ; distribution ac- 
cording to status, 82-84; em- 
ployments in, character of, 6- 



18; examiner of, chief, lll- 
113; examinations for, 27- 
29 ; examinations, exceptions 
from, 60-73 ; includes whom, 
1-2; investigation of forced 
campaign contributions and em- 
ployees, 156-158; laborers in, 
73-74; local boards of, 386; 
machinery needed for adminis- 
tration, 147-148; MacVeagh, 
Franklin, on, 19; merit basis, 
510-511; opportunity for ad- 
vancement, 511-517; political 
influence in, 20-25; political ac- 
tivity in, 162-164; Postal Serv- 
ice, 231; prestige of, 509; pro- 
motion within the service, 236- 
246; recommendation of ad- 
visory council, 564-566; rules 
and orders, 54-56, 60-64; 
selection for, 26-54 ; security 
of, 510; size of, 2-6; women in, 
17-18; see also "Personnel Ad- 
ministration." 

Civil Service Commission, atti- 
tude toward area of selection 
from within the service, 271- 
274; investigation of forced 
campaign contributions of em- 
ployees, 156-158. 

Civil service reform, 26. 

Civilians, in the War Depart- 
ment, 234-235. 

Class positions, defined, 200; al- 
location and appraisal of, 
206; classification of, 200-203; 
series of, 202-203 ; series de- 
fined, 202 ; services defined, 202. 

Classification, administration and, 
current, 207; appropriation 
technique and, 208-213; ar- 
rangement of classes, 202-203 ; 
budget and, 207, 212-213; class 
defined, 20O ; conditions of, 188- 
190; determination adminis- 
trative, 185-193; determination, 
legislative, 181-185; imperfec- 
tions of, 192; installation of, 
206-207; need of, 180-181; po- 
sitions and salaries, 180-214; 
series, 202-203 ; services, 202- 
203 ; summary of, general, 213- 
214; unit of, 200-203. 



iNDEJt 



597 



Qassified service, 5^-57; com- 
petitive, 56-57; definition of, 
56-57; definition of Attorney- 
General, 497 ; MacVeagh, 
Franklin, on, 19; non-competi- 
tive positions, 57-60; recruit- 
ment methods, 378-454. See 
also unclassified service. 

Clerical positions, competitive ex- 
aminations for promotion in, 
249-250 ; sub-clerical promo- 
tions, 249-250. 

Clerks, confidential, 1 17-120. 

Cleveland, President, on sub-cler- 
ical promotions, 249. 

Coast and Geodetic Survey, 227- 
228 ; promotion within, 227-228 ; 
recruitment of, 464-465. 

Coast Guard, civilian and naval 
status, 3. 

Columbia University, courses for 
public service, 351. 

Committees, employees', 561-562; 
composition of, 569; function, 

570. 

Compensation rates, 193-195; de- 
termination of, legal, 205-206; 
determination, method of, 203- 
205; maximum and minimum, 
205. 

Compensation standards, 172- 

173- 

Competition, area of in recruit- 
ment, 380-385. 

Competitive examination system, 
efficiency in, 446-452; illustra- 
tions of efficiency, 447-451. 

Competitive service defined by 
Attorney-General, 497 ; exam- 
inations for, 446-447; recruit- 
ment methods of, 378-454. 

Commissions and boards, 116-117; 
employees of, 116-117. 

Committee on Reclassification. 
See Reclassification Commis- 
sion. 

Conditions, working, 518-528. 

Conference machinery in the 
British Service, 566-569. 

Confidential clerks, 1 17-120. 

Confidential inspectors, 118. 

Congress, attitude of an area of 
selection within the civil serv- 



ice, 274-27^; positions created 
by, 185-193. 

Congressmen and political inter- 
ference in civil service, 145-148. 

Consular Service, 139-142; ap- 
portionment and, 475; board of 
examiners for, 472-474; classi- 
fication of, 185 ; examinations 
for, 473-476; history of, 471- 
472; method of, 474-475; order 
of President Roosevelt, 472; 
politics and, 473; promotions 
within, 226-227 ; recruitment 
for, 471-476. 

Control of personnel, 176-177. 



Demotion and dismissal, liability 
to, as a means of promoting in- 
dividual efficiency, 492-495 ; 
control of power of removal, 
501-507; difficulties of, 493; 
existing law governing, 495- 
507; politics in, 493, 500; 
power of, 493-495> 49^; pro- 
cedure of dismissals, 495-499- 

Departmental organization for 
recruitment, 543. 

Departmental service, defined, 2. 

Detectives, 118-119; of New 
York, 119. 

Development of personnel sys- 
tems, organization of, 177-1795 
procedure of, 175-176. 

Diplomatic Service, 139-142; ap- 
pointment to, 226; career in, 
142; merit principle and, 477; 
merit principle, President Taft 
on, 477; method of, a.'jd-^'JT, 
non-competitive examinations, 
477; order of President Taft, 
476; personnel, permanent, 141- 
142; politics and, 226; promo- 
tion within, 225-226. 

Dismissal, liability to, as a means 
of promoting individual effi- 
ciency, 492-495; control of 
power of removal, 495-499 ; dif- 
ficulties of, 493; existing law 
governing, 495-507; politics in, 
493, 500; power of, 493-494> 
498; procedure of dismissals, 

495-499. 



598 



INDEX 



Dismissal, power of, 493-495 ; ad- 
ministrative review of, 502; 
judicial review of, 501-502; 
machinery for control of, 501- 
507 ; trial board review of, 502- 

505. 
Districts of field positions, 382- 

385. 
Doty, F. E., on psychological 
tests, 373n. 



Education for the Civil Service, 
American Political Science As- 
sociation on, 351 ; British sys- 
tem, 346; Columbia University 
and, 351 ; Consular and Diplo- 
matic Service, 350; entrance, 
training for, 351-353; facili- 
ties for, 258-264; foreign serv- 
ice, education in, 347; New 
York Bureau of Municipal Re- 
search on, 351 ; personnel, reg- 
ular and, 346; promotion and, 
247, 252-255; provided how, 
346, 350-351 ; recruitment and, 
345-347; special fields, require- 
ments in, 347-351 ; standards, 
252-254; tests in, 367-369. 

Educational facilities, provision 
for in the U. S., 258-264; edu- 
cational requirements, 263 
morale and, 259; private educa 
tional institutions and, 264 
promotion on, 260; provisions 
for, 258-264; Washington, in 
260-261 ; Washington, outside 
of, 260-261 ; working hours 
and, 262. 

Educational standards in the Civil 
Service, 252-254. 

Educational tests in recruitment, 
367-369; difficulties of, 368; 
schooling and, 368; State De- 
partment and, 368. 

Efficiency, maintenance of, indi- 
vidual, 480-517; need of reputa- 
tion for, 509, 513 ; promotion of, 
481-495, 508-517. 

Efficiency records, 321-332, 481- 
482 ; administrative discretion 
and, 322-323 ; appeal from by 
employees, right of, 331 ; Civil 



Service Commission on, 323 ; 
forms of, 328-329; National 
Civil Service Reform League 
on, 335-336; promotion and, 
481-482; Reclassification Com- 
mission on, 325 ; reliance on, 
330; review of, 332; trans- 
fers and, 324; uniformity of, 

325- 
Eligible registers, 404-406; de- 
lay of, 404; laborers and, 467; 
non-publicity, results of, 442- 
443; production of, 404-406; 
publicity of, 441-443; rule for, 

443. 

Elimination of politics from the 
Civil Service, 537; intervention 
of politics, prohibition of, 148- 
151, 537; within the service, 
144-167. 

Employment manager, need of, 
177-179. 

Employees' boards and commis- 
sions and, 116-117; Bryan, W. 
J., on terms of office, 87; con- 
tributions to postal campaign 
funds, 153-154; Executive or- 
der of 1918, 452-453; Federal 
Farm Loan Board, 137; in- 
ternal revenue collector, 133- 
136; laid off when, 452; legal 
employees, 114-116; political 
influence on employees of su- 
perior officers, 153-154; postal 
employees of star routes and 
third and fourth class post of- 
fices, 137-138; prohibition of 
political influence on, 155-160; 
protection against removal, 89- 
95; reemployment of, 452-453; 
removal for political reasons 
of, 89-95 ; rotation in office, 87, 
89-95 ; tenure of office, 87, 9on ; 
term of office, 84-89. 

Employees' committees, 561-562; 
composition of, 569; function, 
570. 

Employees' Compensation Com- 
mission, salaries of, 182-184. 

Employees' organization and com- 
mittees, 544-574; act of 1912, 
556; activities in District of 
Columbia, 554; affiliations with 



INDEX 



599 



other organizations, right of, 
556-558; American Federation 
of Labor, 546, 550-556; compo- 
sition of employees committees, 
569; conclusion on, 559-561; 
dangers of, 571-573; employees' 
committees, 561-562; Em- 
ployees' Retirement Confer- 
ence, 553n; existing organiza- 
tions, 545-546; Federal Em- 
ployees' Unions, 545, 552 ; func- 
tion of employees' committees, 
570; Glassberg, Benjamin, on, 
547; Great Britain and, 545, 
566; history of political activi- 
ties of, 437; influence in Con- 
gress, 551; Jordan, Col. H. B., 
and, 562; legislative activities 
of, 546-556; leaders who are 
federal employees, 571-573; 
Loud, E. F., on, 547; machinery 
for employees' representation, 
562; National Federation of 
Federal Employees, 545, 560, 
574; National Federation of 
Post Office clerks, activities, 
550-551, 553-556; personnel 
system, government, and, 559- 
561 ; Picatinny Arsenal and, 
574; political activities, pro- 
hibition of, 548-549; Post Office 
Clerks' Federation, 550; Re- 
classification Commission's at- 
titude toward employees' repre- 
sentation, 564-566; representa- 
tives of employees before man- 
agement, 571 ; Rock Island Ar- 
senal, 563; Roosevelt, Presi- 
dent, on, 548; San Francisco 
Federal Employees' Union, 
552; strike rights, 558-559; 
United Association of Post Of- 
fice Clerks, 550. 
Employees' representation, 562- 
564; British service and, 566; 
compensation of committees, 
569; danger of, 571-573; func- 
tions of Employees' Commis- 
sion, 570; Jordan, Col. H. B., 
and, 562; leaders who are not 
federal employees, 571-573; 
machinery for, existing, 562; 
management, representation be- 



fore, 571 ; Picatinny Arsenal, 
574; Reclassification Commit- 
tee's attitude, 564-566; Rock 
Island Arsenal, 562. 

Employees' retirement confer- 
ence, 553n. 

Engineers, civilian, in the War 
Department, 234. 

England, civil service in, 545; 
Conference Committees, 566- 

569-. 
Examination for the civil service, 
27-29; advertising of, 389-392; 
competitive, 28-29 ; efficiency of 
the competitive examination 
system, 446-452; efficiency of 
illustrations, 447-451; exception 
and exemptions from, 60-73, 
96-143, 451; exception from 
formal methods of selection, 74- 
80, 137; exception of, for vari- 
ous positions, 60-73 ; extension 
of, 96-143; fourth class post- 
masters, 398-404; held where, 
386-387; individuals, 68-73; in- 
formation of, popular, needed, 
390; integrity of, safeguard- 
ing, 392-398; New York Com- 
mission's experience with, 392 ; 
ordered how, 387-389; pass ex- 
aminations, 27-28; personal, ex- 
amination of, 531-536; post- 
masters, fourth class, 398-404; 
postmasters, presidential, sub- 
jects, for examinations of, 
456, 464n; positions excepted 
from, 60-73 ; presidential ex- 
ceptions, 68-71 ; rules and 
orders, 60-64; rural carriers, 
398-404 ; statutory exceptions, 
64-68; unification of, 388- 

389. 
Examination, for promotion, 332- 
337; advantages of, 333; disad- 
vantages of, 333-334; Reclassi- 
fication Commission on, 336- 

337- 
Examinations for recruitment, as- 
sembled how, 358-361 ; educa- 
tion tests, 367-369; experience 
tests, 364-367; for the foreign 
service, 358-360; fully-as- 
sembled, 358; locally-assembled, 



6oo 



INDEX 



360-361 ; manual, 363-364 ; non- 
assembled, 361 ; oral and writ- 
ten, 361-363; personality tests, 
376-377; psychological tests, 
372-376 ; technical capacity 
tests, 369-372. 
Examinations, non-competitive, 
468; Civil Service Commission 
on, 468-471 ; Newcomb, H. T., 
on, 469; Roosevelt, President, 
on, 469; Twelfth Census, ap- 
plication to, 469; Wright, C. 

D., on, 469. 
Examinations, organization for, 

385-386. 
Examinations, pass, 468; Civil 

Service Commission on, 468- 

471; Hines, F. H., on, 469; 

Newcomb, H. D,, on, 469; 

Twelfth Census, application 

to personnel for, 469-470; 

Roosevelt, President, on, 

469; Wright, Carroll D., on, 

469. 
Examiner, Chief National Bank, 

132-133- 

Examiner, Chief, of the Civil 
Service Commission, 111-113, 

Examining staff, Coast and Geo- 
detic Survey, 536; compensa- 
tion of, 534; development of, 
532; inadequacy of, 404-405; 
independent and departmental 
staffs, 532-534 ; methods of, 534- 
535; Public Health Service, 

536. 

Exceptions from examinations in 
the Civil Service, 60-73, 96-143, 
451 ; in Federal Farm Loan 
Board, 137; list of positions 
excepted, loi. 

Exemptions from examinations, 
96-143 ; deputy collector and 
deputy marshals of internal 
revenue, 135-136; list of po- 
sitions exempted, loi. 

Experience tests, 364-367; chief 
examiner on, 366-367 ; classified 
service, 365; foreign service, 

365. 
Environment, physical, 525-528; 
Reclassification Commission on, 
526-527. 



Federal Employees' Union, 545. 

Federal Employees' Union of San 
Francisco, 552 ; see also em- 
ployees' organizations. 

Federal Farm Loan Board, field 
employees, 137. 

Federation of Federal Employees, 
520; and overtime work, 520. 

Field employees of the Federal 
Farm Loan Board, 137. 

Field Service, advantages of 
transfer to Washington, 288- 
289; chief officers, 120-121 ; list 
of, 120-121 ; merit system and, 
124-126; personnel in, 133-139; 
transfers to Washington, 287- 
292. 

Foreign Service, 139-142. 

Four-year term, 123-124. 



Geodetic and Coast Survey, 464- 
465 ; recruitment of, 464-465. 

Glassberg, Benjamin, on political 
activities of federal employees, 

547- 
Great Britain, civil service of, 

545, 566-569. 



Harding, President, and the merit 
system in the postal service, 
I32n. 

Heads of bureau and services, 
99-110; and political appoint- 
ment, 100-102, 105; tenure of, 
100-102. 

Heads of departments, 96-98; as 
administrators, 97; as political 
advisors, 97. 

Hours of Labor, 518-519. 

Increases of salary, 482-492. 
Independent establishments, 96- 

98. 
Independent examining staffs, 

532-534. 
Individual efficiency, maintenance 

of, 480-517; promotion of, 481- 

495, 508, 517. . ^ ^ 
Inspectors, confidential, lio. 
Installation of classification, 206. 



INDEX 



6oi 



Internal Revenue Service deputy 
collectors and deputy marshals, 
133-136; location of legal power 
in personnel, matters of, 151- 
152. 

International Association of 
Machinists, 55. See also Em- 
ployees' Organizations. 



Johnson, President, and the 
tenure of office acts, gon. 

Joint Commission on Reclassifica- 
tion of Salaries. See Reclassi- 
fication Commission. 

Jordan, Colonel Harry B. and 
employees' representation, 562. 



Labor, hours of, 518-519. 

Labor unions of civil service em- 
ployees. See Employees' Or- 
ganizations. 

Laborers in the civil service, 73- 

74. 

Laborers, recruitment of, 465- 
471, act of, 1871,- 466; age 
limits, 466; boards, labor, 466; 
clerks and, 465; eligible regis- 
ters, 467 ; rating of labors, 467 ; 
recruitment of, 465-471 ; spoils 
system, 465 ; Washington, la- 
borers outside of, 138-139. 

Law clerks, 114-116. 

Laws. See Legislation. 

Leaves of absence, 521-525; law 
pending, 522; Reclassification 
Commission's recommendations, 
524; ruling of Comptroller of 
Treasury, 522 ; sick leave, 523. 

Legal basis of recruitment meth- 
ods, 379-380. 

Legal employees, 114-116. 

Legal positions, promotion in, 
251-252. 

Legal power in personnel matter, 
151-154; location of, 151-154- 

Legislation, Acts of Congress, 41- 
43-54; of 1853, 41; of 1855, 41; 
of 1856, 41, of 1871, 43-44; of 
1883, 44-54. 

Legislative determination of po- 
sitions ^nd salaries, 181-185. 



Local civil service boards, 386. 

Longevity pay. See Salary In- 
creases. 

Loud, E. F., on political activi- 
ties of federal employees, 547. 

Lowell, A. L., on employees' 
unions in Great Britain, 546. 

Lump sum, appropriations for 
salaries, 185-193; example of, 
186. 

Lyman, Charles, on women in the 
civil service, 17-18. 



MacVeagh, Franklin, on the 

classified service, 19. 
Manual of examinations, 363- 

364- 

Medical services, 525-528; Re- 
classification Commission on, 
526-527. 

Meriam, Lewis, on statistics of 
employees, 8-1 1. 

Merit basis of public service, 510- 

Sii. 

Merit system, extension of, 96- 
143; Bonaparte, C. J., on, 115- 
116; bureau heads and, 102; 
field service, 124-126; Harding, 
President and, 126-128; meth- 
ods of extension, 103-107; 
Roosevelt, President, and, 128; 
Taft, President, on, 125-128; 
Wilson, President, and, 126- 
128. 

Methods of recruitment, 378-529. 

Military preference in the civil 
service, 406-413; attorney-gen- 
eral on, 408; act of July 11, 
1919, 409; applies to what, 413; 
Civil Service Commission on, 
410-413; effects of, 410-412; 
history of, 407; nature of, 407- 
408; procedure in determining, 
406-407. 

Minor positions, how established, 
182. 



Nagel, Charles, on formal meth- 
ods of promotion, 338-340. 

National Bank Examiner, chief, 
132-133- 



602 



INDEX 



National Civil Service Reform 
League, on the Foreign Service 
examinations, 359-360; on post- 
masterships, 230 ; on postmast- 
erships, presidential, 459-460. 

National Council for the Admin- 
istrative and Legal Department 
in Great Britain, 568-569. 

National Federation of Federal 
Employees, 116, 545-546, 560, 

574- 

National Federation of Post Of- 
fice Clerks, 550-551, 553-556. 
See also Employees' Organiza- 
tions. 

Nationalization of the civil serv- 
ice, 291. 

Navy Department, 233-234; se- 
lection of personnel for, 233- 

234- 

Newcomb, H. T., on pass exam- 
inations, 469. 

New York Bureau of Municipal 
Research and training for the 
public service, 351. 

Non-political positions, list of, 
101-102. 



Oral examinations, 361-363. 

Organization, for examining and 
recruiting, 385-386. 

Organization for personnel ad- 
ministration, 538-543 ; advisory 
body to, 537; analysis of the 
problem, 529; classification of 
positions and salaries, 536-537; 
central administration, 538-543 ; 
danger in, 530; examining per- 
sonnel, 531-536; physical w^ork 
conditions, 537; political con- 
siderations, elimination of, 537; 
recruitment and, 530-536, 

543- . 

Organizations, employees'. See 
Employees' Organizations. 

Overtime v^ork, 519-521 ; law gov- 
erning, 520; weakness of, 520- 

521. 



Patent Office, examining force, 
228; promotion within, 228. 



Pensions in the civil service, 72, 
87; act of 1920, 512; procedure 
of, 512. 

Periodical increases in salary, 
482-492. 

Personality tests, 376-377; for 
what positions, 376-377; for 
presidential postmasters, 377. 

Personnel administration, organ- 
ization for, 529-543 ; advisory 
body to, 537; aim and scope of, 
173-174; analysis of the prob- 
lem, 529; central administra- 
tion, 538-543; danger in, 530; 
employees' organizations, 559 ; 
examining staffs, 532-534; fac- 
tors in, special, 168-173; in- 
ternal administration, 536; per- 
sonnel in Washington, 110-113; 
physical conditions, working, 
537 ; political considerations, 
elimination of, 537. 

Personnel committees, 565. 

Personnel control, 176-177. 

Personnel and legal power, 151- 

154- 
Personnel manager, need of, 177- 

179. 
Personnel problem, dual character 

of, 19-20. 
Personnel, subordinate, in the 

field service, 133-139; list of, 

not in the competitive service, 

133- 
Personnel system, development 
of, 174-176; in Great Britain, 

254-255- 

Physical environment, 525-528; 
Reclassification Commission on, 
526-528. 

Picatinny Arsenal, employees' 
representation at, 574. 

Piece work, 482. 

Political activity of employees, 
160-167, 546-556; activities per- 
mitted, where, i6in, i63n; ac- 
tivity, voluntary, 160-167; 
Civil Service Commission, in- 
vestigation by, 162-164; forms 
of, 162-164; National Federa- 
tion of Federal Employees, 166; 
restrictions on, 158-167; Roose- 
velt, President, on, 161-164. 



INDEX 



603 



See also Employees' Organiza- 
tions. 

Political appointees and non-po- 
litical appointees in the federal 
service, 170, 172. 

Political influence, Civil Service 
Commission on, 313-314; con- 
gressman and, 145-148; diffi- 
culty of, 144-145 ; factor, 20-25 ; 
elimination of, 24-25, 144-167, 
305-306, 537; employees, influ- 
ence of evils of, 20-24 ; superior 
officers on, 154-155; inside the 
service, 144-167; outside the 
service, 116-117; prohibition of, 
148-151; promotion and, 312- 
316; salary increases, 153- 

Political positions, list of, loi. 

Position specifications, method of 
determining, 197-200, 205-206; 
legal determination of, 205-206 ; 
scope and character of, 200, 

Positions, classification and stan- 
dardization of, 180-214; admin- 
istrative determination of, 185- 
193; departmental heads and, 
185-193 ; determination of, 
method, 197-200, 205-206; de- 
termination, legislative, 181- 
183; information regarding, 
need of popular, 390-392; 
minor positions, how estab- 
lished, 182; need of, 183; num- 
ber of, 183; presidential po- 
sitions, 185-193; statutory po- 
sitions, 185-193; variety of, 
183. 

Positions, Postal Service, 186- 
187; clerical, 185-191; Reclassi- 
fication Commission on, 190- 
191 ; technical and professional, 
191 ; titles of, 191-192. 

Postal employees of star routes 
and third and fourth-class post 
offices, 137-138. 

Postal Service, Civil Service 
Commission, 231; competitive 
examinations and, 222 ; merit 
system, 126-132; politics and, 
230-231 ; positions in, peculi- 
arity of, 186-187; promotions 
within, 222-233; Roper, D. C, 



on, 257-258; Wilson, President, 
and, 229. 

Postmasters, compensation of, 
455; number of, 455. 

Postmasters, fourth class, exam- 
ination of, 398-404; President 
Roosevelt and, 402; procedure 
of, 402-403. 

Postmasters, presidential, 454- 
463. See presidential post- 
masters. 

Postmasterships and veteran 
preference, 461. 

Post Office clerks, federal, 550. 
See also employees' organiza- 
tions. 

Preference, military, 406-413. 

Presidential appointments, 29-40, 
99-113, 120-121, 123, 185-193; 
Congressional power over, 31- 
33; list of positions, 33-37; non- 
presidential appointments, 40- 

4I-. 

Presidential postmasters, recruit- 
ment of, 454-463; examination 
subjects, 464n; National Civil 
Service Reform League on, 
459-460; order of, 1917, 454- 
455; order of 1920, 455; order 
of 1921, 463n; prerequisites for, 
464n; procedure, 461-463; rat- 
ing, 458; residence require- 
ments, 455. 

Private secretaries, 1 17-120. 

Probationary period in recruit- 
ment, 444-446 ; rule ' for, 444 ; 
Reclassification Commission on, 
445-446. 

Procedure, in recruitment, 357- 
358. . 

Professional examining staffs, 

532-534. 

Prohibition, Civil Service Com- 
mission on, 158-160; coercion 
prohibited, 159-160; contribu- 
tions prohibited, 155-158; inter- 
vention prohibited, 148-151; 
investigation of, 156-158. 

Promotion, administration of- 
ficer, discretion of, 304-305 ; 
British personnel system and, 
254-255 ; central restrictions 
on, 307-310; civil service rule 



6o4 



INDEX 



on, 308; in clerical positions, 
250 ; departmental restrictions 
on, 310-312; Diplomatic serv- 
ice, 225-226; education and, 
247, 252-254; educational facil- 
ities and, 260; efficiency rec- 
ords, 481 ; examinations, cler- 
ical competitive for, 249-250; 
methods, extent of formal, 
306; methods, need of formal, 
303-307 ; methods, existing, 
307-317; natural line of, 222- 
223; Patent Office, 228; poli- 
tics, exclusion of, 305-306; po- 
sitions barred to employees, 
99; Postal Service, 228-233; 
Public Health Service, 223- 
225 ; restrictions on promotion 
in Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
Public Health and Foreign 
Service, 309-312; standard of 
efficiency for, 308; statistical 
accounting and legal positions, 
251-252; stenographic po- 
sitions, 250-251; sub-clerical 
positions, 249-250 ; technical 
positions, 252. 

Promotion and reassignment, 298- 
344; distinguished from in- 
crease of compensation, 298- 
299; methods, formal, need of, 
303-307 ; reassignment versus 
promotion, 299-300 ; technical 
problem of promotion methods, 
317-318. 

Promotion from vi^ithin the serv- 
ice, 216-222; area of, within 
the service, 264-292; "blind al- 
leys," 246-248; bureaucy and, 
219-220; control of, central, 
240-246; Civil Service Com- 
mission on, 236-239, 271-274; 
Congress, attitude of, 274-275 ; 
disadvantages of existing re- 
strictions upon transfers, 275- 
284; direction of personnel 
from outside the service, 218- 
219; equalizing opportunity in, 
266; England, France, and 
Germany, 219-220; limitations 
of natural, 267; objections to, 
217-219; positions not in the 
natural line of, 246-254; re- 



assignment and, 267-268; Re- 
classification Commission, 239- 
240; rules governing, 242-243; 
stagnation and, 268; transfers 
from departments, 270-273 ; 
transfer from field to Wash- 
ington, 269-270. See also se- 
lection. 

Promotion methods, 318-344; ad- 
ministration of, 342-344; Civil 
Service Commission on effi- 
ciency records, 323 ; combination 
of methods of, 337-338; com- 
petitive examination, 332-337; 
efficiency record, method of, 
321-332; efficiency record and 
administration discretion, 322- 
323; Nagel, Charles, on, 338- 
340; seniority method of, 318- 
321 ; special personnel to ad- 
minister, 342-344; summary of 
methods, 338-344- 

Proportional representation of 
the states in Federal service, 
171. 

Public Health Service, appoint- 
ment to, 223; civilian status, 
1-2; medical, 478-479; promo- 
tion in, 223-225; recruitment 
of officers, 471-479; scientific 
personnel in, 225. 

Public Service advancement in, 
opportunity for, 51 1-5 17; at- 
tractiveness of, 508-510; entry 
to, 170-171 ; merit basis, 510- 
511; prestige of, 509; security 
of, 510. 

Psychological tests, 372-376 ; 
alpha test, 374; Civil Service 
Commission experience with, 
373-376; Doty, F. E., on, 373n; 
in industries, 372; for what 
positions, 374. 



Quasi-military service, i. 



Rates, compensation, 193-195; 
440-441 ; discretion in fixing, 
for entrance, 440-441 ; legal 
determination of, 205-206; 
maximum and minimum, 205. 



INDEX 



605 



Rating for laborers, 469 ; for 
presidential postmasters, 458 ; 
re-rating, 406. 

Reassignment and promotion, 
215, 298-344; advantage of, 
302; distinguished from in- 
crease of compensation, 298- 
299, 300-303; promotion versus 
reassignment, 299-300 ; reas- 
signment with no change of 
compensation or grade, 300- 

303- . . 

Reclassification Commission, ap- 
propriation for, 196; assistance 
of, technical, 196-197; civil 
service, positions in, 190-191 ; 
194-195; class, defined, 200; 
composed of whom, 195; func- 
tioned when, 196; hours of 
labor, 518; methods of deter- 
mining position specifications, 
197-200; organization of, 196- 
197; promotion within the 
service, attitude of toward, 
239-240; salary increases, rec- 
ommendations regarding, 490- 
492; series defined and ar- 
ranged, 202-203; services de- 
fined and arranged, 202-203; 
transfers, attitude toward, re- 
striction of, 276n, 284-286; 
work of, 195-214. 

Records, efficiency, 481-482; and 
promotion, 481. 

Recruitment, probationary period 
in, 444-446; and promotion, 
215-297. 

Recruitment methods, 345-479 ; 
basic aspects, 345-377; of 
classified competitive service, 
378-454; legal basis of, 379- 
380. 

Recruitment, organization for, 
530-536; danger in, 530; de- 
partmental, 543 ; independent 
body, 540. 

Reemployment of employees, 452- 
453; when laid off, 452; exec- 
utive order of 1918, 452- 

453. 
Registers of eligibles for the 
civil service, 404-406; delay of, 
404; labor, 467; publicity of, 



441-443; non-publicity results, 
442-443; rule for, 443. 
Removal, power of, 493-495; ad- 
ministrative review of, 502; 
judicial review of, 501-502; 
machinery for control of, 501- 
507; trial board review of, 502- 

505. 

Removal of officers, 102-103. 

Representation, employees, 562- 
564; British Service, 556; 
composition of employees' com- 
mittees, 569; danger of, 571- 
573; functions of employees' 
commissions, 579; Jordan, Col. 
H. B., on, 562; leaders not fed- 
eral employees, 571-573 5 "ma- 
chinery for, existing, 562; at 
Picatinny Arsenal, 574 ;^ Re- 
classification Commission's at- 
titude, 564-566; representation 
before management, 571 ; at 
Rock Island Arsenal, 562. 

Re-rating, appeals for, 406. 

Residence requirements, 381-382; 
of presidential postmasters, 

455. 

Retirement. See pensions. 

Rock Island Arsenal, employees' 
representation at, 562. 

Roper, Daniel C, on the Postal 
Service, 257-258. 

Roosevelt, President, and the 
Consular Service, 472; and ex- 
aminations for the Postal 
Service, 402; and the merit 
system, 128; and political ac- 
tivities of federal employees, 
161, 164, 548. 

Rural carriers, examination of, 
398-404; "three name" rule ap- 
plied to, 431-432. 

Rural Carriers' Association. See 
Employees' Organizations. 



Salaries, classification and stan- 
dardization of, 180-214; ad- 
ministrative determination of, 
185-193; Employees' Compen- 
sation Commission, 182-184 ; 
legislative determination of, 
181-185; need of, 180-181. 



6o6 



INDEX 



Salary increases, periodic, 482- 
492; automatic and semi-auto- 
matic, 483 ; Coast and Geodetic 
Survey, 485-486; effect of, 491 ; 
methods of, 490-491 ; Patent 
Office, 488-489; Postal Service, 
486-488; Public Health Serv- 
ice, 485-486 ; Reclassification 
Commission's recommendations, 
490-492 ; statutory position, 
489; theory of, 483. 

Salary increases and politics, 153- 

154. 

Scope of personnel administra- 
tion, 173-174-. 

Secretaries, assistant, and analo- 
gous officers, 98-99. 

Selection for the civil service, 
26-54; exceptions from formal 
method of selection, 14-80; ex- 
tension of formal systems of, 
96-143; legislation for, 41-54; 
recruitment and, 215-297; sta- 
tistics of employees according 
to method of selection status, 
80-84; systems of, 26-29; tradi- 
tion in selection, 81-84. 

Selection from within the serv- 
ice, act of 1912, on, 29s; ap- 
portionment principle, 293-294 ; 
appropriation and statutory 
positions, 295-297; competitive 
and excepted positions, 292- 
293 ; promotion and reassign- 
ment, 298-344; technical ob- 
stacles to, 292-298. 

Senate, advice and consent in 
civil service appointments, 103; 
abolition of, 103. 

Seniority in promotion, 318-321; 
advantages of, 319-320; evils 
of, 320. 

Series of classes of positions, 
202-203; defined and arranged, 
202-203. 

Services defined and classified, 
202-203. 

Sick leave, 523 ; cumulative, 524- 
525 ; Reclassification Commis- 
sion's recommendations, 524 ; 
statistics of, 524-525. 

Smithsonian Institution, 113; of- 
ficials of, 113. 



Soldiers, National Home for Dis- 
abled Volunteer, 113; man- 
agers of, 113. 

Solicitors of the departments, 

IIO-III. 

Special agents, 118. 

Specialized education required, 
347-351 ; in Consular and Dip- 
lomatic service, 350; hovvr pro- 
vided, 350-351- 

Specifications of positions, 
method of determining, 197- 
200, 205-206; legal determina- 
tion, 205-206; scope and char- 
acter of, 200. 

Standardization of positions and 
salaries, 180-214; adminis- 
trative determination, 185-193 ; 
legislative determination, 180- 
185; need of, 180-181. 

Standards, educational, in the 
civil service, 252-254. 

Statistical positions, promotions 
in, 251-252. 

Statistics of employees, 8-12, 80- 
84. 

Statutory positions, 181-185. 

Statutory roll, 181-185. 

Stenographic positions, promo- 
tions in^ 250-251. 

Stevi^art, Luther C, on relations 
of federal employees with the 
American Federation of Labor, 
556n. 

Stratification of civil service, 248. 

Sub-clerical positions, promo- 
tion in, 249-250; competitive 
examination for promotion, 
249-250; President Cleveland 
on, 249. 

Suspension, power of, 507-508; 
as a means of providing indi- 
vidual efficiency, 507-508. 



Taft, President, and the merit 
system, 125-129; on tenure of 
office, 87-88. 

Technical capacity tests, 369- 
372; Civil Service Commission, 
372; for Consular and Diplo- 
matic Service, 372; classes of, 
370. 



INDEX 



607 



Technical positions, promotion in, 
251-252. 

Tenure of heads of bureaus and 
services, 100-102. 

Tenure of office acts, pon; Presi- 
dent Johnson and, Qon. 

Titles of positions, 191, 193-195. 

Training for the civil service, 
351-353; American Political 
Science Association on, 351 ; 
Columbia University and, 351 ; 
New York Bureau of Munici- 
pal Research, 351. 

Transfers, advantages of inter- 
change of field service and 
Washington, 288-289 ; depart- 
mental transfers, 270-273 ; dis- 
advantages of existing restric- 
tions upon, 275-284; eligibles 
for, absence of, means for lo- 
cating, 286; field service to 
Washington, 269-270, 287-292; 
morale, effect on, 289-290; na- 
tionalization of the service by, 
291 ; politics and, 290. 

Transfers, restriction upon, 275- 
281 ; act of 1912 on, 283-284, 
295; act of 1917 on, 279; 
agencies and, new, 275; au- 
thority for, 281 ; Civil Service 
Commission on, 277-278; com- 
petitive class, 275 ; Depart- 
mental, 276-277; disadvantages 
of, 275-284; employees, mo- 
tives of, 277; important restric- 
tions, 278-279; mobility of serv- 
ice and, 284; Reclassification 
Commission on, 276n, 284-286; 
Secretary of Commerce and 
Labor on, 280-282; War, dur- 
ing the, 283. 



Unclassified service, recruitment 
methods, 454-479. 

Uniformity in titles and compen- 
sation rates, 193-195; lack of, 
193-195- 

Unions, employees, 554-574. See 
also "Employees' Organiza- 
tions." 

United Association of Post Ofiice 
Clerks, 550. See also Em- 
ployees' Organizations. 

Universities and the civil service 
examinations in England, 255. 



Vacancies, benefit of, 512-514; 
causes of, 511-514, 517; disad- 
vantages of, 514; by whom 
filled, 516. 

Veteran preference and postmas- 
terships, 451. 



War Department, 233-234; civ- 
ilian engineers in, 234-235; 
selection of personnel for, 233- 

234- 
Washington, personnel in, iio- 

113; subordinate personnel in, 

1 13-120. 
Wilson, President, and the merit 

system, 126-13 1; and the postal 

service examinations, 229. 
Women, recruitment of, 355-357; 

discrimination against, 356; 

elimination of discrimination, 

356-357- 

Working conditions, 518-528. 

Wright, C. D., on pass examina- 
tions, 469. 

Written examinations, 361-363. 



